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THE WIND BOY 



























































































































The Wind Boy sat up quickly, surprised and 
glad to find her there. 










THE WIND BOY 

BY 

ETHEL COOK ELIOT 



ILLUSTRATED 

BY 

WINIFRED BROMHALL 



GARDEN CITY NEW YORK 

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 

1923 















0 


3 




COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY 
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION 
INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN 

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES 
AT 

THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y. 

First Edition 


C1A759560 

OCT 25 t9?3 


( 


TO 

MY LITTLE GIRL 

TORKA 

WHO, IF ANYTHING NEEDS EXPLAINING, 
KNOWS MORE ABOUT IT THAN I DO 

































CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. The Girl from the Mountains ... i 

II. The Robe of Starry-Brightness . . 16 

III. Shopping with Nan.30 

IV. Kay and Gentian are Measured . . 40 

V. The Keepsake.51 

VI. Noon in the Tulip Garden .... 67 

VII. The Spring in the Woods .... 81 

VIII. Through Music. \ 90 

IX. The Other School.104 

X. The Secret Door.118 

XI. Gentian at the Loom.129 

XII. On Paths of Night.143 

XIII. Kay and the Masker.153 

XIV. Nan and the Policeman.166 

XV. Rosemarie is Waked by the Little 

Silver Bell.182 

XVI. Rosemarie Comes to School . . . 199 

XVII. Detra Meets the Artist.213 

XVIII. Comrades.223 

























LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


The Wind Boy sat up quickly, surprised, and 
glad to find her there. Frontispiece 

(See Chapter 6) 

FACING PAGE 

She had an errand in this village .... 3 

“Let’s not wait for Mother to make the por¬ 
ridge. I’m sure I can manage perfectly” . 9 

Rosemarie in the Shoe Shop.36 

As if there were wings on her feet .... 53 

“We’re like two birds,” she whispered. “Such 
fun!”.61 

He drifted down and stood by Nan on the 
doorstone.93 

Going to church.95 

Miss Todd fitted the Dunce cap on her bright, 
fairy gold head.109 

Studying.154 

“There,” cried Kay, “Now I’ve got you!” . 160 

Nan tossed the Mask to the Wind Boy . . 175 

Their mother was working.179 

Rosemarie knocked, ever so softly .... 195 

They raced and shouted and laughed with the 
rest.208 













I 



















THE WIND BOY 


% 


T 



THE WIND BOY 

CHAPTER I 

THE GIRL FROM THE MOUNTAINS 

r [ a spring twilight a young girl was walking 
down a village street. Just at a glance any one 
might know she was a stranger there. For one 
thing her dress was like nobody else’s. It was the 
color of sunlight on a brown forest path when the 
sun is low behind the trees; and it was made tunic 
fashion with a belt of twisted grasses. Under the 
tunic was a white guimpe of sheerest, softest lawn 
gathered at the neck and wrists with a silver cord. 
To add to the strangeness, she wore on her feet san¬ 
dals that looked as though she had made them her¬ 
self out of bark and braided weeds. In one hand she 
swung a loosely tied bundle wrapped in purple. Her 
head was hatless, and though she was a tall girl, 
quite grown up, her hair was blowing free in soft 
curls almost to her shoulders, the color of a forest 
brook when the sun finds it. Do you wonder that 
people turned to look after her? 

But the strange girl never noticed the surprised 
glances of the villagers, or the cries of the children. 
She walked along, her head up, her clear eyes eager; 


2 


THE WIND BOY 


for she had an errand in this village that made her 
feet step lightly, and touched the corners of her grave 
mouth with a smile. 

She walked along like this until, almost at the edge 
of the village, she came to a white mansion, bowered 
in gardens, and looking as out of place in its setting 
as she herself looked, only in a different way. There 
she paused—as who came to the village ever failed to 
pause—to look up at the mansion’s graceful arches 
and vine covered walls. 

“And well she may stare!” thought the village po¬ 
liceman who was coming toward her along the street. 
“She is hardly likely ever to have seen such a grand, 
fine house in all her days. How countrified she 
looks!” 

The strange girl spoke to the Policeman just as he 
was passing proudly. 

“Can you tell me, please, who lives in this beauti¬ 
ful house?” she asked. 

The Policeman stopped, very glad of an opportun¬ 
ity to awe the country girl. 

“Yes, I can tell you all right. The greatest living 
artist in the world owns that mansion. That’s what 
the papers call him—‘the greatest living artist in the 
world.’ But for all that, he thinks our village a very 
pretty spot, and he has built the home of his old age 
here.” 

“It is truly a beautiful house,” the strange girl 
said, still gazing up at the graceful arches and the 
vines’ dark green against the white marble. 

“Yes,” agreed the Policeman, standing taller and 



She had an errand in this village . 


3 





THE GIRL FROM THE MOUNTAINS 5 

prouder than ever in his blue coat with its smart 
double row of brass buttons. “People come from 
great distances just to look at it as you are doing 
now. The Artist drew the plans for it himself, and 
the plans for those gardens stretching away at the 
back, too. They run out almost to the woods— 
gardens and lawns and terraces. The Artist knows 
the colors of all the flowers that are to blossom there 
and their times. I can tell you, a little later in the 
summer, those gardens are a marvel to everybody, 
especially strangers like you!” 

“Those gardens must be a splendid place for chil¬ 
dren to play,” said the strange girl. “Did he mean 
them for that?” 

“No. Well, perhaps he did mean them for one 
child a little. His granddaughter lives with him. 
But no other children get into them, for she’s not al¬ 
lowed to mix with our village children.” 

“Why not?” asked the strange girl, surprised. 

“Why, she’s much too grand, of course. She has 
a governess and a nurse, and teachers who come out 
from the city every day or so to teach her music and 
dancing and such things. She’s a regular little prin¬ 
cess I can tell you, in spite of this being a democracy. 
But you must be from the country, aren’t you?” 

“Yes, I am from the country,” said the strange 
girl. “I have just come from the mountains.” 

As the strange girl said this, for the first time the 
Policeman’s eyes met and looked directly into her 
clear, quiet eyes. And at that instant a strange 
thing happened to him. He thought that here, at 


6 


THE WIND BOY 

the end of Main Street, he was standing all by him¬ 
self on the pavement and holding conversation with 
the purple mountains that lifted their heads, far off, 
above the roofs of the Artist’s mansion. But he was 
not alone, of course; for here was the country girl in 
her brown tunic and funny sandals. And he was 
looking straight into her eyes. It must have been 
in her eyes he saw the mountains. The notion went 
as quickly as it had come. 

“But who lives in that tiny house, that little 
brown house?” asked the strange girl. She had 
turned away her eyes. 

“That? That little brown cottage? Foreigners. 
Refugees. Strange people! A mother and her two 
children. The father went away to the War and 
then they were driven out of their own village and 
country by the enemy. They came here and the 
mother got work in a factory in the city. But the 
father has never found them. They aren’t even sure 
he is alive. They’re very poor.” 

“That is the house I am looking for, I think,” said 
the strange girl. “I am answering the mother’s 
advertisement for a general housework girl. See, 
here it is.” She pulled out of her pocket a clipping 
that read: 

“Wanted: a girl for general housework. One who 
can do plain cooking and is fond of children. Small 
wages, but a good home.” 

“ Small wages! I should think so! ” laughed the Po¬ 
liceman. “Much good it’ll do you to answer that ad.” 

“Well, I have come for that,” said the strange girl. 


THE GIRL FROM THE MOUNTAINS 7 

And as she passed him to go to the little brown 
house, again he saw distant, purple mountains in 
her eyes. He stayed for some time looking after her, 
wondering at himself. 

The little brown cottage stood in a tiny garden 
with a tall, thick hedge of lilac bushes between it and 
the Artist’s lawn. The strange girl crossed the street 
and went in at the low swinging gate. The door 
was around at the side of the house, and to get to it 
the strange girl had to pass the open sitting-room 
windows. She stopped to look in. 

It was a little, low oblong sitting-room she saw, 
with thin golden-brown curtains at the windows, and 
golden-brown cushions in the chairs. There was 
very little furniture, and what there was was worn 
and rickety. But it was a happy room for all of 
that. There was a shelf of books on the wall, and 
under it a square table with a bowl of bright tulips, 
purple, red and white, in the middle of it. Per¬ 
haps it was the tulips that gave the room its happi¬ 
ness. 

But in a minute, as the strange girl stood there, 
more happiness came into it—much more. For a 
little girl and her brother came in from the kitchen, 
carrying spoons and plates to set on the table for 
supper. 

The little girl w T as eight years old and her brother 
was nine. You could see easily enough that they 
were foreigners. In that village, even in that coun¬ 
try, there was no such copper-colored hair. The 
boy’s head was a thick mop of burnished copper. 


8 


THE WIND BOY 


His eyes were large and dark and thoughtful. The 
girl’s hair was copper-colored too, and soft as cob¬ 
webs. It was braided in two smooth pigtails that 
ended just halfway down her back. Both were 
dressed in a dull blue flannel that looked as though 
it had once been the same piece. And indeed, this 
was true, for last year, when they were living at home 
in their own village, it had been one of their mother’s 
prettiest dresses. 

The little girl was smiling, as at her own happy 
thoughts. 

“Oh Kay,” she cried, suddenly, as they were put¬ 
ting the things about on the table. “Let’s not wait 
for mother to make the porridge. Her train’s so 
late! I’m sure I can manage perfectly. I’ve watched 
her so many times!” 

“Of course you could manage. So could I. But 
mother doesn’t want us to light the stove. You 
know that as well as I do.” 

“Oh, but if it were to surprise her? She does come 
home so tired! And to find a nice hot supper?” 

But Kay shook his head. “ I’m sure it would make 
her tireder if we did what she’s told us not to do.” 

The little girl’s face fell. The strange girl, leaning 
in at the open window, heard her sigh. 

“Oh, don’t sigh, little copper-haired girl,” she sud¬ 
denly cried. “I am quite old, almost grown up, you 
see. So I can light the fire. And we will surprise 
your mother!” 

Both children turned in amazement toward the 
window. And the strange girl leaning there saw 





“Let’s not wait for Mother to make the porridge. 
I’m sure I can manage perfectly.” 


9 






































































THE GIRL FROM THE MOUNTAINS u 

something beside amazement in their faces, too. It 
was sudden fright. 

“Why should they be frightened by a friendly 
voice?” she wondered. 

Of course the minute they saw her clear, smiling 
eyes their fear vanished. 

“Oh, will you?” cried the little girl. 

But Kay asked, “Who are you?” 

“My name is Nan. And I have come all the way 
from the mountains answering your mother’s ad¬ 
vertisement for a general housework girl. But per¬ 
haps she has found one?” 

“No. No one has even come to talk to her about 
it. You see they all know how poor we are.” 

“Then may I come in, please? And we will get 
supper to surprise her.” 

The little girl, standing wide-eyed and eager behind 
her brother, now cried, “Oh, splendid! Do, do come 
in. I’ll open the door,” and she started quickly 
toward it. 

But Nan, the stranger girl, laughed and putting 
one hand against the window casing, leapt lightly 
over the sill into the room. That surprised the chil¬ 
dren. Why, Kay himself who was strong and supple 
could never have done that. But Nan had done it 
as though it were nothing! 

“You are Kay,” she said to the boy, “for I heard 
her call you that. But what is your name?” she 
asked the little girl. 

“Gentian.” 

“Gentian! That is a flower.” Nan bent down 


12 


THE WIND BOY 


and looked into the eager upturned face in the twi¬ 
light of the room. “And you are like a gentian. 
Have you ever seen one?” 

“No, we haven’t.” Kay answered for his sister. 
“But Father has—in a country where he travelled 
once. They are blue like Gentian’s eyes, and 
though they grow among stones on windy hillsides, 
they are quiet like the sky. Father always said that 
one small gentian had all the sky folded around in 
its soft fringes. It is a special magic that makes 
that possible. Gentian magic. Cold and frost do 
not scare it for it has the whole sky held close to give 
it company and heart.” 

“Yes,” said Nan. “The gentian is like that. Are 
you like that?” she asked the little girl. 

But Gentian laughed. “The cold scares me,” 
she said. “Last winter it was dreadful. That was 
before Mother got work in the factory and could buy 
us warm coats. Then-” 

Kay interrupted. “Father says she’s like that.” 

But Gentian did not listen. “Let’s get supper,” 
she cried. “How glad I am you’re here, Nan! 
Mother will be so surprised!” 

When the stove was lighted in the kitchen, and the 
kettle put on to boil, Kay suddenly said, “It’s queer 
to have you so friendly, Nan, and not laughing at us 
at all. Everyone else here in this country seems to 
be laughing. It’s because we’re foreigners, I suppose. 
Once I told a boy at school about Gentian’s name and 
what it means. He laughed and laughed. I’m 
careful now not to say the things I think to anybody.” 


THE GIRL FROM THE MOUNTAINS 13 

“But you say the things you think to me. You 
began right at once to say them. How was that?” 

Kay looked at her, wondering himself. “You’re 
different from anybody I’ve ever seen before,” he said 
then. “I forget that you’re a stranger.” 

Nan still looked at him. And then his eyes sud¬ 
denly wavered from those clear, quiet ones that were 
so kind. He bent his head and turned away. You 
must not like him any the less when I tell you that 
he had turned away to hide his tears. They were 
strange happy tears. How splendid to have a friend, 
and all so suddenly, in this alien village! 

When the porridge was made and some wheaten 
cakes too, Nan and the two children went back into 
the sitting room to wait for Mother. It was almost 
dark now, but they did not light the lamp or the 
candles. They sat on a bench under the window, 
Nan in the middle; and she began to tell them stories 
that she had learned in the mountains. 

But she had hardly begun when there came a 
rustle and a scratching—odd little sounds—at the 
window above their heads. Both children sprang 
up and faced about. But Nan only turned her head. 
There, dim in the falling darkness, was the weirdest 
face. Little green eyes, a huge nose, terribly frown¬ 
ing brows and pointed brown ears! You have never 
seen anything so ugly, and it is not likely that you 
ever will. 

The children backed away toward the other side 
of the room, silently terrified. But Nan, to their 
amazed horror, stretched a hand up to seize the face! 


THE WIND BOY 


H 

It ducked away just in time and vanished from the 
window. The children heard its feet running lightly 
away around Kay’s flower beds in the garden. 

Then, Kay cried, “It never came right up to our 
window before!” 

Gentian ran to Nan and hid her face against her 
breast. “It was an ugly face,” Nan comforted. 
“But it’s only a mask somebody has put on to 
frighten you. Any one can see that. Who is it ? ” 

“Yes, it is a mask,” Kay agreed. “I was the first 
of all the children to know that. “They don’t believe 
me yet about it. But it’s just as scary for all its 
being only a mask!” 

“I don’t see how,” Nan said sensibly. “Who 
wears it?” 

“Why, that’s the scary part. Nobody can find 
out.” 

“Well, it looked to me as though it were a child— 
some little mischief or other,” Nan said. 

“No, it can’t be.” 

“Why can’t it be?” 

“Because if it was any child in the village it would 
have been caught before now. It has been frighten¬ 
ing children for days. One very little boy when he 
saw it on the street in the dusk was made sick. Our 
teacher, and the Artist who lives next door, and even 
the Policeman himself, say it must be caught and 
when it is caught, punished. But I think even the 
Policeman is a little afraid of it!” 

“Where do the children see it, usually?” 

A “It’s always on this street, in front of our house 


THE GIRL FROM THE MOUNTAINS 15 

or the Artist’s. And it’s always just at twilight. It 
never came into our yard before, though, and right 
up to the window.” 

“And it hadn’t better do so again,” Nan said 
soberly, “unless it wants a good chase. To make a 
little boy sick with fear!” 

She walked suddenly back to the window and 
leaned there, looking out. 

“The ugly thing is not in the garden,” she said. 
“Let’s just forget it until it comes again. Then 
let’s catch it, and pull off* its mask. We’ll see then 
that it’s nothing to be frightened of.” 

And just at that minute the children’s mother 
Detra, came in at the little swinging gate. 


CHAPTER II 


THE ROBE OF STARRY-BRIGHTNESS 

D ETRA, the children’s mother, was surprised 
enough to find the strange girl from the 
mountains waiting for her in her house. But 
the children would not let Nan explain. Kay ran 
to his mother, laughing and merrier than she had 
seen him in a long time. Perhaps he had never been 
so merry since those days back in their own village 
when they all lived together so happily, and it was 
Hazar the father who went out to work, and Detra 
stayed at home with her children. 

“Oh Mother, we have such a surprise! Shut your 
eyes. Say not a word!” 

Detra sat down on the bench under the window. 
Her train had been late and so crowded that she had 
stood in it all the way from the city. She was very 
tired, and glad to shut her eyes. But when she had 
done so it was as though a light had gone out in the 
room, for Detra’s eyes were so bright with mother 
love, the children missed them when they were shut. 

Then Kay and Gentian and Nan on tiptoes hurried 
into the kitchen and brought in the supper. When 
they had brought it in, and Nan had lighted the 
lamp and the three candles, too, that stood on the 
16 


THE ROBE OF STARRY-BRIGHTNESS 17 

bookshelf, and set the bowl of tulips exactly in the 
middle of the table, the children both cried at once, 
“Now you may look, Mother darling! Look!” 

And when the tired mother opened her eyes and 
saw the warm food, nicely cooked, and the flowers 
and the candles and the children’s shining faces, she 
was as surprised and as happy as they could have 
hoped. 

But she looked at Nan in a very puzzled way. 

“Who are you?” she asked. “You have been very 
kind to my children and me. You do not live in this 
village?” 

“I have just to-day come from the mountains,” 
said Nan. “I am answering your advertisement for 
a general housework girl. I hope I’ll do.” 

Detra’s first surprise was as nothing to her surprise 
now. But she was silent for a minute. 

“Oh, she will do! She will, Mother?” cried Kay 
and Gentian in one breath. “She made those little 
wheaten cakes just for you so deliciously! You will 
let her stay?” 

Detra passed her hand across her eyes. “I am not 
dreaming?” she asked. 

At that how the children laughed! “Asleep? Not 
you. Why, Mother, you are as wide awake as we. 
And she may stay?” 

All this time Nan stood there looking as eager and 
hopeful as the children. Her face, her eyes, her 
half grave smile all said, “Yes, may I stay?” 

At last Detra spoke, looking up wonderingly at the 
strange girl. “But I can’t pay you! Not what 


18 THE WIND BOY 

youTe worth! Why, you aren’t the sort of maid 
I had in mind at all. You are—You are a superior 
person somehow!” 

At that Nan laughed as merrily as the children had 
laughed a minute before. “No, I am just a girl from 
the mountains,” she said. “I am sure you can pay 
me all I need.” 

“And you are so young!” said Detra then. “How 
old are you ? Seventeen ? Eighteen ? ” 

“Back in the mountains we do not reckon our age. 
I do not know how old I am. But I know that I 
am old enough to bake wheaten cakes and keep a 
house clean, and look after the children. I have 
come a long way, Detra, to answer your advertise¬ 
ment.” 

Detra did not at that moment think it strange that 
Nan should call her by her Christian name. She 
only remembered to wonder at it later. 

“I shall be very happy to have you stay,” she said 
then, “if only you are sure you really want to. You 
see, it is not just the small wages I can pay. It is 
also that we do not have many nice things to eat. 
Will you be contented with almost nothing but 
wheaten cakes and porridge? Cakes and sweets we 
seldom have; for I am quite poor.” 

The children were holding their breath. Suppose, 
oh suppose, this new, gay, beautiful friend should go 
away to a house where there were better things to 
eat and more wages—to a fine place like the Artist’s 
over the hedge! Their mother must have heard 
their thoughts, for she added, “The Artist who lives 


THE ROBE OF STARRY-BRIGHTNESS 19 

in the beautiful mansion across the hedge could very 
probably make a place for you. His housekeeper is 
always engaging new maids and discharging old 
ones/’ 

Nan shook her head. She was not tempted by 
the Artist’s mansion. Then the children threw 
themselves upon her. “You are going to stay and 
live with us and be with us forever?” they cried. 

“Bring another plate and cup, then,” said Detra. 
“The table is set for three only.” 

“I have set a place for myself in the kitchen,” Nan 
answered. “You have your children only at night. 
I shall be happy with them much of the day. Is 
there anything else you need?” 

Detra looked at the table carefully. “No, you 
have thought of everything. Have you plenty for 
yourself?” 

“Yes, thank you.” 

Then Nan went out, softly closing the door into 
the kitchen. 

The supper was delicious. Such wheaten cakes 
they had never tasted—no, not even back in their 
own village. How grateful Detra was to have found 
this ready and perfect for her! Always before, when 
she got home from the factory, no matter how tired 
she was, she had had to prepare supper herself. 

While they ate the good food the children told their 
mother all about the coming of Nan: how she had 
jumped in over the sill so lightly, so lightly; how she 
had frightened away the Masker that had come right 
up to their very window and stood looking in. “She 


20 


THE WIND BOY 


wasn’t a bit afraid! She just grabbed at the mask 
and almost caught it!” 

But at the recounting of this adventure Detra was 
troubled. “The Masker in our garden,” she ex¬ 
claimed. “Oh, why doesn’t the Policeman or some¬ 
one catch it! It is wicked to frighten children so. I 
should think the Artist would do something! He 
himself has a little girl to be frightened!” 

She was really talking to herself, but the children 
heard. 

“Oh no,” Gentian said. “ Rosemarie will never be 
frightened. Her nurse and her governess are always 
with her. The Masker would keep away from them. 
And at night she sleeps in her high nursery. A big 
girl like that to sleep in a nursery! But she will not 
be frightened.” 

“Oh, I hope she is never frightened,” Kay said al¬ 
most under his breath. For Kay, although he had 
never even spoken to the Artist’s little granddaughter 
felt that he knew her and liked her very much. When 
she passed in her grand shining automobile, sitting 
straight between her two attendants in the back seat, 
or when she looked down at him from her high nur¬ 
sery window when he had reached the top of the 
cherry tree at the door of the little brown house, her 
merry brown eyes seemed always to be saying the 
same thing: “I like you, ever so much. If only we 
were allowed we might be such splendid playmates. 
I have read so many jolly stories that I want to tell 
you. I like sea stories best, stories of pirates and 
runaway boys and hidden treasure. You do, too, I 


THE ROBE OF STARRY-BRIGHTNESS 21 

know. And I want you to let me climb your cherry 
tree. You are splendid at tree climbing. Yesterday 
I thought you were falling, but you caught yourself. 
Oh, I do want to play with you!” 

How even such merry brown eyes as Rosemarie’s 
were could say all that in a passing flash I do not 
know. But Kay was always sure they did. And 
afterwards Rosemarie said he was right; she was 
thinking all that, and much more. 

So now he repeated in a whisper, “Oh, I hope she is 
never frightened!” 

“Well, I don’t want her to be frightened, either,” 
Detra answered, for she had heard. “But just be¬ 
cause his own little granddaughter is safe is no reason 
why the Artist should go on letting all the other 
little boys and girls in the village be frightened. 
It is always on this street, near his house. He could 
do something.” 

“But he has done something,” Kay assured her. 
“In school to-day Miss Todd told us that the Artist 
had promised that the Masker was to be caught and 
no child frightened by it any more. He is going to 
give the Policeman a lot of money when he catches it. 
And then the Masker is to be punished. Miss Todd 
warned us in case it might be one of us. Imagine!” 

Detra sighed. “I am glad that something is 
being done. They know then what a shame it is to 
let children be frightened.” 

At that minute Nan came in to clear the table. 

The children helped her, moving back and forth 
with her from the sitting room to the kitchen. When 


22 


THE WIND BOY 


all was cleared, the floor brushed, and the table set 
back against the wall, they went into the kitchen to 
do the dishes. 

“Leave the door open/’ Detra called. “I like to 
hear your voices.” 

Then she went up to her room and soon came down 
with something in her hands. Nan, standing at the 
sink, could see through the open doorway that it was 
a little statuette made of plastilina. Detra set it on 
the table under the lamp and drawing up a chair 
began to work on it with her fingers and a little tool, 
sharp at one end, blunt at the other. 

“That is the Wind Boy,” Kay confided. “Mother 
is an artist.” He said it proudly. 

Detra heard, and looked up to smile at him. “It 
may be the Wind Boy sometime,” she said a little 
wistfully. “I am sure he is lighter and freer and 
more joyous than I have made him though—ever 
so much so, the real Wind Boy. He should be as 
happy and as light as air. But somehow, he won’t 
come right!” 

Then to herself she added softly, “I am too tired, 
perhaps, at night after the day’s work. I might 
make him right in the morning. But this is the only 
time I have.” 

Nan had left the dishes and drawn near. She 
stood above Detra, looking down at the little figure. 

The Wind Boy was not like any human boy that 
you have ever seen. His hair grew in thick, soft 
curls over his head. His eyes were far apart, wide 
and should have been happy, but somehow they were 


THE ROBE OF STARRY-BRIGHTNESS 23 

touched with sadness. His dress was a fluttering 
tunic not quite to his knees and his body was slim 
and supple. High above his head were spread wide, 
strong, swift wings. His feet were just leaving the 
earth in flight, and his face seemed to say, “Yes, I 
am coming i” 

Yes, all this was true of the Wind Boy even if he 
was just a little statuette made of plastilina! It was 
a very beautiful little statuette. But it was so beau¬ 
tiful, so wonderful, that Detra and even the children 
knew that it might be ever so much more beautiful 
and ever so much more wonderful. 

“Why isn’t he happier, Mother?” asked Kay, who 
had draw near, too. “If I could fly, I’d be happier 
than that.” 

“If I could fly,” Gentian said softly, “I’d fly with 
more of me—WITH ALL OF ME!” 

“I don’t know,” puzzled Detra, passing her hands 
across her eyes. “I wish I could make him happier, 
and make all of him ready to fly!” 

But Nan said nothing, though she bent down and 
looked for a long time earnestly and with great in¬ 
terest at the Wind Boy. After a time she went back 
to her dishes. 

“Mother may show the Wind Boy to the Artist, 
if it ever comes as she wants it,” Kay told her as he 
wiped the last spoon and handed it to Gentian to 
put away. “But she doesn’t want any one to speak 
of that yet. It is a secret.” 

“But if it is a secret why do you tell me?” asked 
Nan. 


THE WIND BOY 


24 

“Oh, but somehow—I didn’t think—not to you!” 

What Kay meant was that Nan was already so 
dear to him and Gentian that for a minute he did not 
remember that she was not one of them. 

But Detra had heard from the next room. And 
now she lifted her eyes from her work on the Wind 
Boy to say, “Don’t bother, Kay, this time. You 
didn’t mean to let my secret out I know. And Nan 
will remember not to tell. It is just the village people. 
We don’t want them to laugh at us, that is all.” 

“But why should they laugh?” asked Nan. 

“I don’t know,” Detra answered. “But they 
do, all the time. Our ways are not their ways, I 
suppose.” 

Just then Nan noticed that Gentian’s eyes were 
beginning to droop. “Let us go to bed, and leave 
the house quiet for your mother to try to get the 
Wind Boy right in,” she suggested. 

“Yes, do go to bed, children dear,” agreed Detra. 
“To-morrow is Saturday and you will want to play 
hard. And Gentian, you may show Nan her room 
in the attic. I am sorry that it isn’t a nicer one.” 

But when Gentian and Kay too had taken Nan up 
to the attic room she thought it was very nice indeed. 
You will think so too. 

But first I must tell you about this little brown 
house that was set down like a stepping stone to the 
Artist’s magnificent one. Downstairs there were only 
the kitchen and the sitting room and a little hall—up¬ 
stairs Mother’s and Gentian’s room, and back of 
that Kay’s room—and above these two rooms, the 


THE ROBE OF STARRY-BRIGHTNESS 25 

attic, a long, low room with a slanting, plastered 
ceiling, and a dormer window at each end, with their 
sills almost on a level with the floor. Under one 
sloping side stood a narrow bed, painted white. By 
one of the windows was a chest of drawers, and in 
front of the other window a low, three-legged stool. 
By the bed lay a strip of faded blue rug. That was 
everything there was in the room! 

But when Nan had put the candle on the top of 
the chest of drawers, the light gleamed pleasantly 
on the white walls and ceiling, and the faded blue 
rug by the bed shone like a bit of dim water. 

Kay had carried up Nan’s bundle, wrapped care¬ 
lessly in its purple covering. It was very small, he 
thought, to hold all of Nan’s wardrobe. Why, most 
people who went anywhere to stay took a trunk along 
at least! He laid the bundle on the white coverlet 
of the bed. 

“What a beautiful room!” exclaimed Nan, looking 
all around. 

And Gentian and Kay did see suddenly that it 
was a very beautiful room. How it happened I don’t 
know. Perhaps it was so beautiful because the Night 
had got in through the windows, which were both 
open. The room now was beautiful, like the spring 
evening, only that it was smaller. The spring night 
air, sweet with the smell of budding cherry blossoms, 
and spring flowers and grass and earth stirred against 
their faces, and Gentian thought, “It is just as though 
we were out in some little room in the sky and all 
the spring fragrance coming up to us there!” 


26 


THE WIND BOY 


Then she noticed the purple bundle that Kay had 
put on the bed. “Oh, may we see into your bundle?” 
she begged. 

Perhaps it was rude to ask that, but Gentian did 
not mean to be rude; nor Kay when he echoed, “Oh, 
yes, do let us see what you brought.” 

Nan laughed. “Little curiosities! Yes, you may 
undo it, Gentian; it is all my clothes.” 

So Gentian with eager fingers undid the knotted 
purple cloth and, opening it on the bed, spread out 
Nan’s things. 

There was another dress, wood-brown just like the 
one Nan was wearing. There was another guimpe, 
too, sheer, soft and white, gathered with silver 
strings at the neck and wrists. There was a change 
of under linen, very white and soft too. And there 
was a night gown. 

But Gentian did not know that it was a night gown. 
Nor would you. It was the color of the spring night 
sky, faint blue; and it was scattered through and 
through with glimmering stars. The stars were not 
embroidered on the cloth or woven there, but seemed 
to shine forth from deep within it, just as the stars 
show forth in the sky. And though at first glance 
the robe was only a film, still it was dense, and you 
could look deeply into it as into the sky. When 
Gentian took it up to spread it out on the bed, the 
scent of pines and fir trees and sap and arbutus hung 
in the air all about her; and she had to look to see 
that she had anything in her hands at all, for the 
robe had no weight. For a minute Gentian thought 


THE ROBE OF STARRY-BRIGHTNESS 27 

that a strip of the sky must somehow have blown into 
the window and onto the bed. 

“What is this?” she asked, wonderingly. “It is 
too beautiful for a dress.” 

“Yes, it is too beautiful for a day dress when there 
is work to be done,” answered Nan. “It is my 
nightrobe.” 

“Do you wear it to sleep in?” cried Gentian, 
amazed, for it was hard to believe that any one would 
put on anything so lovely just to go to bed in. 

“Yes, I sleep in it.” 

“But I never heard of such a night gown!” 

“Back in the mountains we always wear night 
gowns like this.” 

“But why is it so light? When I pick it up it’s 
just as though it were wings that lifted out of my 
hands, and if I held , might carry me away with them.” 

“Yes, that is what I feel too, when I wear it,” said 
Nan. 

Nan was sitting cross-legged on the floor by the 
low window sill, her elbows on her knees, her chin in 
her hands. Her eyes were grave and thoughtful. 

“I am wondering about the Wind Boy,” she said. 
“Why should a Wind Boy be sad?” 

“Why, just because Mother hasn’t managed to 
get him happier,” answered Kay. “He isn’t real, 
you know. He’s just a statue.” He added these 
sensible words because Nan was looking so strangely 
serious about it. 

“Yes, the little image down there isn’t alive, of 
course,” she agreed, looking up at Kay. “But I 


28 


THE WIND BOY 


am wondering about the Wind Boy himself, I don’t 
like to think that he is sad. A Wind Boy should not 
be sad.” 

Even Gentian laughed at that. “Why, there isn’t 
any real Wind Boy,” Kay said. “Mother just made 
him up, you know—because she’s an artist and can.” 

But Nan stayed grave. “That’s just why there 
is a real Wind Boy,” she said, “Because your mother 
is an artist, a true one. If she weren’t an 
artist, but just a pretend one, well, then there very 
likely wouldn’t be any Wind Boy. But don’t you 
yourselves know that since she has made him so true 
there must be a truer one, if we could only see him?” 

No, the children did not know that. But Nan 
looked so wisely kind and beautifully grave there in 
the open window by starlight and candle-light that 
they believed now what they could not understand 
at all. 

“Do you suppose he is down there in the garden, 
perhaps, looking in at your mother as she works?” 
Nan wondered. “It’s not right that he should be 
sad, wherever he is!” 

“When he can fly too!” cried Kay, who for this 
minute believed in the Wind Boy. “How could a 
boy that could fly be sad?” 

“Let’s find out,” said Nan then softly. “If we 
can find out, perhaps we can help him to be glad 
again.” 

“And if we can make him glad again we shall be 
helping Mother too,” cried Kay, his eyes bright at 
the thought. “For she would have a happy Wind 


THE ROBE OF STARRY-BRIGHTNESS 29 

Boy to copy then, and get him right, the way she 
thinks he ought to be!” 

Gentian and Kay both knelt by Nan and looked 
down into the garden. But though they looked so 
hard that they almost saw the color of the jonquils 
in the starlight, they saw no Wind Boy, wandering 
troubled and alone. 

“We will find him somehow, though,” Nan prom¬ 
ised. “For he is here, somewhere near, or how came 
that little image! Only now, to-night, we had better 
sleep, as she told us to.” 

. . . A little later when Kay was fast asleep 

in his room and Gentian was about to fall asleep in her 
bed in her mother’s room, she suddenly said to her¬ 
self, “Oh, I wish I might give the Wind Boy some of 
my happiness! I have so much and to spare! I am 
brimmed full—like the spring we found in the woods 
with Mother last Sunday! Nan makes my happi¬ 
ness, because she is here. She is up there, just above 
me in her starry-brightness.” (That is what Gentian 
that night and always after called the blue night- 
robe). “Perhaps she will float far to-night, it is so 
light, that gown—but she will come back before morn¬ 
ing. Together we three shall find the Wind Boy— 
He will be happy again—the statue will come right 
—Mother will be happy—The spring was brimmed 
full of the most sparkling-” 

But in the midst of these dreamy thoughts, Gen¬ 
tian forgot everything and floated off like a petal into 
sleep. 


CHAPTER III 


SHOPPING WITH NAN 


HE next morning the children woke so late 



that Detra had already gone to her work. 


JL Their first thought was of Nan. Would she 
still be there? Or was last night just a dream made 
up by their lonely hearts ? When they remembered 
the starry-brightness nightrobe they thought it might 
very well be a dream. 

But no, when they got downstairs, there she was, 
busy with soap and clean white cloths washing the 
kitchen windows! And their breakfast was waiting 
for them in the sitting room on the table by the tulip 
bowl. The Wind Boy was on the table too, just in 
front of Gentian’s place, for Mother had been too 
tired to put him away last night, and in the morning 
she never had time for anything. 

“You see Mother tried to make him smile last 
night,” said Kay, looking closely at the little figure. 
See, she turned his mouth up at the corners. But 
it’s not the right kind of a smile for all that. It 
looks troubled.” 

“He is bothered,” Gentian agreed quietly. “The 
real one, I mean,” she added, nodding toward the 


SHOPPING WITH NAN 


3 i 

garden. “Something has gone wrong with him, and 
he is not happy.” 

Kay looked as his sister doubtfully. But Gentian 
gazed steadily back. She was not laughing. Some¬ 
how, during last night’s sleep, she had come sure for 
herself about the Wind Boy, and did not just have to 
take Nan's word for him any more. He must be 
real and not far off. How else could Mother have 
found out about him at all ? 

But as Kay wondered there came a sudden loud 
knock at the door. It was so loud and so unexpected 
that it made the children jump. No one but the 
milk man and the grocer came to the door of the 
little brown house in the morning. And the milk¬ 
man had already been, for here was the good cream 
on their cereal. And the grocer never got around so 
early. 

Before they could remember to jump up and an¬ 
swer the surprising knock Nan had come in from the 
kitchen and gone to the door. The children heard 
her say “Good morning, Mr. Policeman. Is there 
something-?” 

Then they heard the Policeman's deep, sudden 
voice, “Yes, there is something. Those two rascally 
children! Which of’em is it? I’ve come to find out.” 

At the Policeman’s rough, sudden words Nan had 
backed away from him and he stepped into the hall, 
and now almost pushed her into the sitting room 
where the children sat, frozen, listening. 

Nan looked at the children over her shoulder and 
their wide eyes and frightened faces made her 


THE WIND BOY 


32 

straighten up and face the Policeman, refusing to 
let him come one step farther. And although she 
was just a girl, with short curls in'her neck, she seemed 
very tall and protecting to the children back in the 
room. 

“What do you mean? What do you want?” she 
asked the Policeman in a cool, clear voice. 

“What I want is to know which one of ’em’s doing 
this funny business with the mask. For one of ’em 
it must be. I’m on the right track at last.” 

“I’m glad if you are really on the right track,” 
Nan said then. “It’s horrid and a shame to frighten 
children. Whom do you suspect?” 

/‘Suspect? I know ?” 

“Well, who?” 

“One of those youngsters over there.” He nodded 
his head toward the children. 

Kay’s heart sank with doubt of what might hap¬ 
pen, and Gentian trembled; for the Policeman in his 
bright blue uniform with its brass buttons and his 
high helmet had always filled them with awe and a 
little anxiety, even though they had done nothing 
wrong. And now to have him in the very room with 
them, nodding toward them and calling them ras¬ 
cally—well, it was pretty terrible! 

But Nan stayed calm. “No, no. You have made a 
mistake,” she said. “The Masker did come and look 
in at our window last night. I was sitting here, over 
there on that bench with the children telling them 
stories. It looked right in at the window by our 
heads. I tried to catch it but it ducked and ran. 


SHOPPING WITH NAN 33 

So you see it couldn’t have been either Kay or 
Gentian.” 

The Policeman looked at Nan as she spoke, and 
she looked steadily back at him. But as he looked 
he forgot all about Nan. He thought he was stand¬ 
ing on a mountain trail. Under foot pine-needles lay 
golden in sunlight. The purple mountain was over 
him. He believed what the wind said, and the 
stream near by, and the murmuring branches. No 
one doubts those voices. And what was it they 
were saying—“You see it couldn’t have been Kay 
or Gentian.” 

The dream lasted but a second, if it were a dream, 
and there was Nan again. Her voice was like the 
voices of the mountain, you could not doubt what it 
said. 

“It’s strange,” he apologized, beginning to back 
out into the hall. “ But you yourself said it did come 
in here and right up to the window. I watched it that 
far. It came stealing through the hole in the lilac 
hedge. I didn’t stop to open the gate but jumped it. 
I tripped though and got a tumble, losing sight of 
the Masker. I didn’t see it again, although I went 
all around your house. Then I thought it must have 
gone back through the hole in the hedge and I went 
into the Artist’s ground to search. That took a 
long time and there was nothing there. Then I 
made up my mind the Masker must have got into 
this house. Then it came to me it was one of these 
children. 

“But by that time it was long after dark, and your 


THE WIND BOY 


34 

lights were out save the one in the sitting room. I 
thought you must all be asleep, except the mother 
who I saw through the window working on a sort of 
statue. I hadn’t a mind to disturb her, she looked so 
tired. And anyhow, she wasn’t the Masker—I 
could see that. She would never frighten children.” 

“No, and you wouldn’t either,” Nan said, glancing 
towards Kay and Gentian and then back to the 
Policeman. 

“No, you’re right. I wouldn’t,” he agreed. 
“Sorry I bothered you.” And he went out of the 
door. The children heard his steps on the path and 
out through the gate. 

“They ran and threw their arms about Nan. “Oh, 
you saved us!” they cried. 

But Nan laughed at that. “He wouldn’t have 
done you any harm. Nothing to be afraid of!” 

“Well, perhaps he wouldn’t hurt us,” Kay said 
thoughtfully. “ But it was rather frightening, all the 
same. And think how Mother would feel if they 
said we were the Masker! She wants the village 
people to like us and be friendly with us. She says 
we may live here all our lives and that everything 
depends on their friendliness. She is so sad now be¬ 
cause they laugh at us and tease us, and because we 
hate to go to school. Why, we don’t tell her what 
they do to us any more because it makes her face so 
sad. And now if they should think one of us was 
the Masker—well, that would be much, much worse.” 

“It seemed such a nice village, as I came through,” 
Nan said thoughtfully. “It is not right that you 


SHOPPING WITH NAN 


35 

should be lonely here. There are so many jolly¬ 
looking children.” 

“Yes, yes,” Kay explained. “But we are so slow 
at learning their language, you see. And we wear 
such queer clothes, they think. And we are stupid 
in school. That is dreadful! At home we were 
never stupid!” 

“But you understand all I say quickly enough,” 
Nan wondered. “And you answer without diffi¬ 
culty.” 

“Yes, but you talk so smoothly, so clearly. Why, 
I never think about words at all when you speak, just 
about what you mean!” Kay said happily. 

“Nor do I,” agreed Gentian. “Why, Nan, I be¬ 
lieve I would understand what you said in any lan¬ 
guage. It is odd—and so pleasant!” 

“Well, perhaps the village children will forget to 
wonder at you soon,” Nan said, smiling her grave 
smile. “You can’t stay strangers to them always. 
And now I have a surprise for you—a nice one. Your 
mother said that I was to take you to buy shoes this 
morning. She gave me some money for it. Let’s 
clear the table and start right away.” 

The children clapped their hands. Their winter 
boots were certainly well worn, and Kay’s had a hole 
at the toe. Gentian’s were both broken out at the 
sides. You could see at a glance that they were 
beyond repair. 

“Oh, goody, goody!” cried Kay. “That will be 
one thing less for them to laugh at anyway!” 

Very soon they were out on the street walking to- 


THE WIND BOY 


36 

wards the stores. They stopped to look in at all the 
windows. Nan was as interested as they, and did 
not mind how much they loitered. But at last they 
reached the shoe store. It was right up against the 
greengrocer’s store with its windows full of vegetables 
and fruit. In the shoe-store window were shoes of 
course, several rows of them, smart and shining. 

When they got into the store the first thing they 
saw was Rosemarie, the Artist’s little granddaughter. 
She was sitting between her governess, Miss Prine, 
and her nurse, Polly, being fitted to a pair of white 

sandals. Her merry 
brown eyes met Nan’s and 
Gentian’s with friendli¬ 
ness. But when they 
came to Kay’s, they said 
the same thing they al¬ 
ways said, as plain as 
day: “I like you, ever so 
much. If only we were 
allowed we might be 
such splendid playmates. 
I have read so many jolly 
stories that I want to tell 
you. I like sea stories 
best, stories of pirates and 
runaway boys and hid¬ 
den treasure. You do 
too, I know. And I want 
you to let me climb your tree. You are splendid at 
climbing. Yesterday I thought you were falling, 



Rosemarie in the 
Shoe Shop ; 









SHOPPING WITH NAN 


37 

but you caught yourself. Oh, I do want to play 
with you!” 

“Good morning,” Nan said, smiling down into the 
friendly, merry eyes. 

But the governess and the nurse stared coldly and 
each put a hand on Rosemarie’s arm. Their eyes said 
plainly, “What do you mean by speaking to our 
charge ? And who are you anyway ? We have never 
seen you in the village before. But we know those 
children. They are foreigners and refugees. Our 
precious charge is not to know such strangers.” 

They said nothing with their voices in spite of all 
their eyes had said; so Nan could not know their 
thoughts for she had turned away to a clerk who had 
come forward from the back of the store. “Good 
morning,” she now greeted him in her clear, cool 
voice. 

“Good morning,” he answered politely enough, 
but perhaps because his business was shoes, his eyes 
went at once to their feet. Nan’s strange, home¬ 
made sandals with their twisted grass straps! He 
looked amazed. The children’s worn, hopeless win¬ 
ter boots! He looked superior. 

“What can I do for you?” he asked. 

“I want barefoot sandals for this boy and girl, 
please. Have you some?” 

“I think so,” said the clerk. But by now he had 
guessed who the children were, and so not only their 
holey shoes made him know them poor. “I have 
some, but they are dear this year. The war! Shoes 
haven’t come down much yet.” 


THE WIND BOY 


38 

“ Still we have to wear shoes. How much are 
barefoot sandals ?" 

When he had told her, she shook her head. “No, 
we haven't enough for that. I am sorry." 

“I am sorry too," said the clerk; and perhaps he 
would have helped them to find something cheaper, 
but just at that minute the clerk who was waiting 
on Rosemarie came to ask his help. He hurried 
away with her. 

“Oh dear! And there isn't another shoe store in 
town," whispered Kay. He was very crestfallen, 
and Gentian's blue eyes were misty. 

“Let us make certain of that before giving up," 
Nan answered, reassuringly. “I thought I saw an¬ 
other shoe store right beside this as we came in. We 
can try there." 

“Oh, no. That was the greengrocer's. Didn't 
you see all the vegetables and fruit in the window? 
And the other side is the stationer's." 

But Nan shook her head. “I saw a barefoot 
sandal in the window. I only came on here, past it, 
because you pulled me." 

The children followed her out into the street, 
hopeful in spite of themselves. 

Rosemarie, back in the store, gazed wistfully after 
them; but her two attendants looked at each other 
over her head and laughed. 

“Who can that girl be?" Miss Prine wondered. 
“A queer creature! And did you see the sandals?" 

“She's probably the general housework girl the 
foreigner advertised for, the one who was to be ‘fond 


SHOPPING WITH NAN 


39 

of children/” Polly answered. “I never thought any- 
body’d answer at all.” 

“ Well this one certainly does n’t look like anybody. 
So you thought right.” 

Both Polly and Miss Prine herself laughed at this 
as though it were very clever. 

But Rosemarie did not laugh, and she did not un¬ 
derstand why they laughed. Perhaps that was be¬ 
cause she had only half heard what they said. Her 
real thoughts had followed away after Kay and 
Gentian into the spring sunlight. 

And Nan too! Nan had been to Rosemarie like 
a being made out of sunlight in the dim store. Her 
voice, asking for barefoot sandals, so clear, so cool, 
had sounded like the stream flowing through her 
grandfather’s tulip garden. Rosemarie’s feet wanted 
to get up and follow Nan out into the sunshine, out 
into the spring morning. 

But her attendants wedged her in from either side, 
and the clerk was trying on another white sandal, 
one with two straps, and a silver buckle. Rose¬ 
marie remembered that she was not allowed to play 
with village children, to say nothing of these strangers! 
She dropped her eyes so that the clerk might not look 
up and see them. They were merry no longer. They 
were more misty than Gentian’s had been! 


CHAPTER IV 


KAY AND GENTIAN ARE MEASURED 

FOR Kay and Gentian, when they got out 



into the spring sunshine, they were surprised 


X ^ to find that Nan had been right after all. 
There was a little narrow door squeezed in between 
the door they had just left and the greengrocer’s. 
And beside the door was a very small window with 
one barefoot sandal standing alone in the middle of 
the display case. 

“Why, this was never here before!” Kay exclaimed. 
“I know perfectly well.” 

“It is such a little window and such a little narrow 
door you may have overlooked it,” Nan said. 

But Kay shook his head. He was sure that it had 
not been there yesterday when he went to school. 
He had stopped to look at the shoes in the regular 
shoe store next door, wondering when his mother 
would be able to buy him and Gentian some new 
ones. If the tiny window with its one sandal had 
been there then he would have noticed quickly 
enough, and guessed that since it was so small its 
prices might be lower. 

But now that the children were close to the little 
window they saw that it was not like glass at all. It 


40 


KAY AND GENTIAN ARE MEASURED 41 

was dimmer than glass, and yet clearer at the same 
time. The sandal seemed a long way off, as though 
they were looking at it through very deep but very 
clear crystal water. And it was not a leather bare¬ 
foot sandal. It looked alive, somehow, and it was 
the color of silver, and tremulous with light. They 
did not remember all this until later though, for Nan 
had pushed open the door and they followed her 
in. 

They were surprised to find the little shop so light. 
How could it be, with such a tiny window? But 
right away they saw that the light came from above, 
spring sunlight as bright and full as in a garden. The 
walls of the shop were blue, the color of the sky. 
Kay felt that he could walk through any one of the 
four walls right away and away, for after all they did 
not seem like blue walls at all, more like blue air. 
The floor was just clean, white sand. 

There was no one in the shop when they entered. 
But the opening door had started up a little oven 
bird. His wings whirred past their faces and he 
soared up, up—singing his sudden delightful flight- 
song. They had only time to glimpse his olive-green 
back, his white breast with the dark spots and his 
orange crown before he was gone. 

“He must be the signal that customers have 
come,” Nan said, looking up after the song. 

“How strange!” thought the children. “Why, he 
takes the place of a bell! But how do they ever keep 
him from flying off, for there isn’t a roof away off up 
there! There is only the sky, surely.” 


THE WIND BOY 


42 

The oven bird’s song must have been a signal 
though, for at that instant a clerk came through the 
side of one wall as though through a curtain. I say 
it was a clerk; but it was such a clerk as you are not 
apt to find in any shop for all your searching. 

He was an old man, but very tall and thin and 
straight. And he was dressed in a long blue robe, 
with a blue hood. It was not air-blue like the cur¬ 
tains, but more night-blue like a spring dusk. From 
under the hood his eyes, dark and piercing, yet kindly 
too, looked at the two children, and at Nan. Then, 
like the clerk in the store next door, he looked down 
at their feet. 

“These children are in search of shoes, I see,” he 
said. “But you,” to Nan, with a keen glance at her, 
“have made some for yourself as fine and service¬ 
able as any I could possibly get for you.” 

Nan nodded. “Yes, but Kay and Gentian do 
need some new ones badly. Have you any barefoot 
sandals to fit them?” 

“I have sandals,” said the Shoeman “But of 
course I must measure the children if I am to be 
sure that any will fit.” 

The children glanced about for a bench on which to 
sit so that the Shoeman might measure their feet. 
But there was no bench there, and nothing at all in 
the little shop, no shelves, shoe boxes, no counter, 
no cash register, nothing but the blue curtains and 
the sunshine—and the little oven bird who had come 
back to his oven-shaped nest and his little mate who 
was sitting on her eggs. The nest was in some grass, 


KAY AND GENTIAN ARE MEASURED 43 

growing in the sand at the foot of one of the blue 
curtains. 

Nan seemed surprised by nothing. She acted as 
though this might be any store, and not just the 
strangest store in the world. And the Shoeman did 
not notice the children’s wonder but went about 
measuring them in a matter-of-fact way. But such 
a way to measure! He went first to Gentian and 
tilted her face up toward the sunny distance. Then 
bending down a little from his tall height, he looked 
several seconds into her blue eyes. His own eyes 
never wavered in their piercing but quiet gaze. Nor 
did Gentian’s eyes waver; for she almost saw strange 
things deep in the old man’s eyes, things that she 
had no words to describe afterward. And she looked 
steadily, trying to see more. 

The Shoeman straightened up. “Yes, you do 
well to bring her here for shoes,” he said. “Her 
measure is Ax and she will want silver!” 

“How can he measure our feet by looking into our 
eyes!” the children puzzled. 

Then the Shoeman moved to Kay, and bending 
measured his eyes with his piercing, quiet gaze. 
Kay’s look did not wander either; it was sure and 
straight. But Kay afterwards said that the Shoe- 
man’s eyes had been just eyes, and that the vast 
distances and golden fields that Gentian had almost 
seen there did not show to him at all. 

The Shoeman said, “Very good also! Very good 
indeed! He will want gold. An.” 

Then he went away up the narrow stairs at the 


44 THE WIND BOY 

farthest end of the shop. The children had never 
seen such high, steep stairs before, and they ended 
just in clear light. When the Shoeman had climbed 
up and up and reached the light he went behind it as 
behind a curtain. A clearer, more crystal light than 
sunlight shone out a second as he moved through. 

The children stood looking up and wondering all 
the minutes that he was away, until the crystal light 
shone out again, and the Shoeman came down the 
stairs with a pair of sandals in each hand. They 
were such beautiful sandals, the children could only 
stare. 

They sat down on the floor to put them on. The 
Shoeman had been right in his measurements; they 
fitted exactly. But Gentian, in spite of her shining 
eyes and her great delight in the beautiful sandals, 
looked doubtful. 

“You see, for us they ought to be durable ,” she 
said. We have to wear them for such a very long 
time. These are so light and so delicate—I am afraid 
mother would be troubled!” 

But she said it very wistfully indeed, for never had 
she even dreamed that such light beautiful footwear 
could be in the world. 

But the Shoeman reassured her. “These are dur¬ 
able,” he said, “Made indeed of the most durable 
thing in the world. You may outgrow them, but 
you can never wear them out.” 

At that, Gentian was relieved and glad. She 
looked at the sandals more closely, and saw that they 
were covered with little silver bees, butterflies, birds, 


KAY AND GENTIAN ARE MEASURED 45 

flowers, and even little silver rivers running down to 
little silver seas. She was overjoyed. 

Just as Kay was putting his golden sandals on, the 
oven bird suddenly whirred up again, singing his 
bubbling, sudden song; for the street door had opened 
and another customer come in. Gentian heard Kay 
gasp, and turned her eyes away from her lovely new 
sandals to see why. Then she too gasped, and 
stayed wide-eyed. For there stood the Wind Boy! 

No, of course it was not the statuette their mother 
was making, come to life. Such things don’t happen. 
It was the real Wind Boy, the model for Mother’s 
statuette. The Boy himself. Big. No one could 
doubt it. And so much more alive! 

The thick clustering curls on his head were the 
color of the morning rays of the sun, and as gleam¬ 
ing. He was taller than Kay by two heads, and slim 
but sturdy. He was dressed in a purple tunic that 
did not come to his knees. And his face and arms 
and neck and legs were touched with the sun to golden 
brown. His tall purple wings were folded down his 
back, and so the children just at first did not see 
them.—Kay’s father in the happy past years had told 
Kay many of the old Greek myths, and now Kay 
thought, “The Wind Boy is one of the Gods.” But 
Gentian thought, “He is the nicest boy I ever saw, 
except Kay, and he is so different from Kay that he 
mightn’t be a boy at all!” 

“Well,” said the Shoeman, turning to the new¬ 
comer, “Do you want sandals too?” 

The Wind Boy nodded and came nearer. The 


THE WIND BOY 


46 

children saw now that there was a cloud in his eyes, 
and across his bright brows. He did not look as 
though he remembered his wings, or that he could fly. 

“I shall have to measure you, you know,” said the 
Shoeman. 

The children were surprised to hear that the Shoe- 
man’s voice was rather stern. 

Then he tipped the Wind Boy’s face up to the 
sunny distance and bent above his eyes. The Wind 
Boy’s eyes did not waver, but Gentian, sitting on 
the sand near his feet, saw him clench his hands as 
though he were trying hard at something. 

The Shoeman looked longer into the Wind Boy’s 
eyes than he had looked into Kay’s and Gentian’s. 
But at last he turned away with a deep sigh. “Have 
you found the mask yet, and destroyed it?” he asked. 

“No, no,” cried the Wind Boy, “but I have hunted 
and hunted, and tried so hard!” 

“I am sorry,” said the Shoeman, not looking any 
more at the Wind Boy, “But you don’t measure for 
any of my sandals.” 

At that, a strange and surprising thing happened. 
The Wind Boy suddenly threw himself down beside 
Gentian where she sat on the sand, and looking 
straight at her began speaking very fast. 

“Oh, I did make the horrid mask,” he said. “I 
did wear it and frighten the children. I thought it 
would be such fun. I made it out of leaves and stems 
and bark and grass. I worked hard, and thought it 
was very clever. Then I went out with it, laughing 
behind it all the time. But when the children ran 


KAY AND GENTIAN ARE MEASURED 47 

and screamed with such terror, and one little fellow 
tumbled down and cried bitterly—why, then it 
wasn’t fun any more. I was disgusted with the old 
mask that had made the little fellow cry. So I threw 
it away over your Artist’s hedge, and wanted never 
to see it again. 

“But someone picked it up. And ever since, who¬ 
ever it was that picked it up has been wearing it at 
twilight to frighten the children. You are a human 
child yourself, even if you are here in the Clear Village 
with a pair of the Shoeman’s best sandals on. Can’t 
you help me? Can’t you tell me who picked up that 
mask and is wearing it? For until I get it back and 
destroy it so that it can never frighten any child 
again, none of my own playmates can play with me, 
or be anything but kind and sorry, like the Shoeman 
here. Can’t you help me?” 

Gentian was all eagerness and pity. 

“No, we don’t know either who has the mask and 
wears it at twilight,” she said as quickly as the Wind 
Boy had spoken, and looking straight at him. “But 
I will help you, Wind Boy, if I can. And Kay will 
help too, I know. Together we ought to get it back. 
Then you will tear it all to pieces and be happy 
again.—But I don’t see why you need be unhappy 
anyway, since it isn’t your fault any more, it’s not 
you who are wearing it at twilight,” she added. 

“Someday you will understand about that, you 
and the Wind Boy, too,” said the Shoeman. 

But Gentian and the Wind Boy hardly heard the 
Shoeman’s words. They were looking at each other 


THE WIND BOY 


48 

with great friendliness. Gentian whispered com¬ 
fortingly, “Don’t mind. Kay and I will help, 
truly.” 

By now Kay’s sandais were buckled. They fitted 
and were very nearly as beautiful as Gentian’s. The 
pictures on these sandals were in gold; there were 
trees and mountains, deer running in gardens, and 
waterfalls. In Kay’s heart he wondered what the 
boys in the school would say to these. Would they 
laugh ? Well, let them. For once he would not care, 
for he could trust the Shoeman. 

But now Nan was offering the Shoeman the money 
that Detra had given her for the shoes. The children 
suddenly held their breath; for after all, it might not 
be enough. Indeed, how could it be enough for such 
beautiful sandals! 

The Shoeman counted it over on his palm. Then 
he handed it back. 

“The old woman at the door in the sunshine out¬ 
side will take it,” he said, “and give you a receipt. 
She is my cashier to-day.” 

So Nan thanked him and the children thanked him, 
and they went to the door. Gentian was the last 
out, and she turned to look at the Wind Boy over her 
shoulder. He was gazing after them ever so wist¬ 
fully, his wings dropped down his back. 

“Oh, come,” she called, “Come to play with us.” 

With a glad bound he was at her side, and followed 
through the door. 

The Shoeman looked long after his customers with 
pleasure in his eyes. “Gentian measured perfectly,” 


KAY AND GENTIAN ARE MEASURED 49 

he said to himself as though it were a very pleasant 
thing. “And I think she will help the Wind Boy, 
and then he shall have his sandals too.” Then he 
stepped away through the blue curtains, and only 
the two little oven birds were left in the shop. 

Outside at the door there was an old woman selling 
pencils. She looked very poor with her ragged shawl 
and patched skirts. And she was lame, for a crutch 
lay by her side. She was seated on a camp stool and 
the pencils were spread out on a board across her 
wide lap. The children had seen her many times 
before on their way to and from school. For every 
day in sun or rain she came here to sell her pencils. 

“This must be the old woman I am to pay,” Nan 
said to the children. And stopping she handed the 
old woman the money that Detra had given her for 
the shoes. The old woman seemed very much sur¬ 
prised at so much money, and all the hundreds of 
wrinkles in her face turned merry. 

“Thank you and thank you,” she said, and began 
counting out pencils. “Why, it just takes every 
last one!” 

“All the better,” answered Nan. “Now you can 
go home and spend the day with your grandchildren. 
It is Saturday and they will be home from school. 
Perhaps you will tell them stories.” 

“You are right,” said the old woman. “They 
like my stories I can tell you, and it’s little time I 
have to give them.” She got up and gathering her 
shawl around her hobbled off happily on her crutch. 

Gentian and Kay now looked at all the pencils 


THE WIND BOY 


5o 

that were theirs with wonder. They never had had 
enough before, for they were for ever drawing pic¬ 
tures. These would last a year at least! 

“But I don’t see what good it does the Shoeman, 
or why the pencils are receipts,” puzzled Kay. 

“Well, neither do I,” answered Nan with her 
gravest smile. “But we can trust the Shoeman and 
do what he says. There is some reason in it some¬ 
where we may be sure.” 

Yes, the children could surely trust the Shoeman. 
They would never forget him and his kind, piercing 
eyes; and Gentian would never forget the things she 
had almost seen in those eyes. 

Kay walked with Nan. But Gentian was already 
on far ahead with the Wind Boy. They were holding 
hands and running very fast indeed, Gentian’s cop¬ 
pery braids and the Wind Boy’s sunlit curls blowing 
back in the soft spring breeze. Straight down the 
street they ran and around the corner, already 
comrades. 


CHAPTER V 


THE KEEPSAKE 

B UT no one on the street turned to look at 
them as they ran. That was strange; for 
surely it is not every day in the week one 
sees a Wind Boy with fluttering curls and purple 
wings and bare brown feet racing beside a little 
human girl on the main street of a village. And now 
I must tell you that why people did not look and 
stare and point was simply because they did not see 
the Wind Boy at all! How was that? 

—Well, have you ever seen a Wind Boy? Still, 
sometime one must have passed you or met with 
you in your walks and play. Why it is that we can¬ 
not see the Fairies or the Clear People or a Wind 
Boy I do not know. But it is true that very few 
people can, and even those who have the sight for 
these Other People have not always the sight. Some¬ 
times it forsakes them for days together. 

But Gentian could see the Wind Boy clear enough, 
and Nan could and Kay. For a minute I thought 
that the new sandals might have had something to 
do with that. But on second thought, I am sure not. 
For they would never have got the sandals at all 
unless they had had the sight. 

Si 


THE WIND BOY 


52 

Gentian already knew that there was something 
strange about her sandals besides their strange beauty. 
Never had she been able to run half so fast before, 
and never had her body been so light. She scarcely 
felt her feet on the pavement at all in her running, 
and she got the idea that there were wings on her 
feet that would carry her away into the spring air, 
if she only knew how to use them. But that may 
have been only because the Wind Boy had her by the 
hand. 

But with Kay it must surely have been his sandals; 
for before Gentian and the Wind Boy had reached 
the little swinging gate of home, he had overtaken 
them. And strange to say, Nan in her home-made, 
grass sandals, was ahead of them all! 

They met, laughing at the gate. 

“I am going to wash the sitting-room windows and 
start luncheon now,” Nan said as calmly and sensi¬ 
bly as though she had not just been running faster 
than the wind and got all the spring sunshine some¬ 
how into her eyes and hair. “You children had bet¬ 
ter run away and play. The Artist’s gardens are a 
fine place for that,” she added, standing on tiptoe 
on the door-step to look over the lilac hedge. 

“Oh, Mother doesn’t let us go there,” Kay cried. 
“She thinks the Artist wouldn’t like it. 

“There are no no-trespassing signs,” wondered 
Nan. 

“No, but still nobody does go into those gardens— 
none of the village children.” 

^ “But see,” Gentian spoke softly, but with great 



As if there were wings on her feet . 


S3 






































































































THE KEEPSAKE 


55 

excitement, pointing. “See the gardens and the 
house just over the Artist's house! Why, how, 
how-?” 

Then Kay and Nan saw. A little higher than the 
Artist’s house rose the pillars and arches and vine- 
wreathed windows of a nobler house; and about it 
and stretching away at the back of it were gardens 
and gardens, golden and blue with spring flowers, 
and long stretches of green grass, and beyond that 
the forest, and towering above the forest, away, 
away, the mountains! 

How can I tell you so that you will see a little of 
what they saw? It was not the Artist’s house, nor 
his gardens, nor was it the wood that you could see 
any day, nor the same purple mountains beyond. 
The children knew the sight of all these very well. 
It was a dimmer but clearer scene, raised a little in 
the blue spring air. It was dimmer because they 
were looking at it as though through a crystal; but 
it gave promise of being clearer if one could only 
get through into the crystal. 

“That is my land,” the Wind Boy said while the 
cloud grew a little darker over his bright brows and 
darkened his clear eyes. “But I cannot be at home 
there any more until I have found that mask. No 
one can play with me. I wander alone; and wherever 
I come the Clear Children leave.” 

“Your land is like this. Only it is as though we 
were looking at it up through a clear crystal spring,” 
Gentian wondered. “As though through the spring 
we found in the woods last Sunday.” 


THE WIND BOY 


56 

But Nan who seemed never to be surprised by 
anything said, “Yes, the Clear Land does seem very 
like this land at first glance, Gentian. But then 
when you know it a little better you find it is not like 
this at all, so very, very different. But then comes 
the strange part; when you know it even better than 
well, when you are perfectly at home there, then you 
see again that it is very like this lower land!” 

The children looked at Nan, puzzled. How could 
she know about all this, and be so sure, when she had 
only just come from the mountains? 

The Wind Boy looked at her, puzzled too, but only 
by her words. 

“Why, you don’t believe that no matter how well 
you came to know the Clear Land, you’d ever think 
that shoe store where I first found you was like the 
shoe store next door to it, would you?” 

Nan nodded. “Yes, I do.” 

Gentian clapped her hands. “Oh, was the shoe- 
store where we got our sandals in your Clear Land ? 
That Land?” She pointed. 

“Yes, of course,” the Wind Boy said, surprised. 
“Didn’t you know that the Shoeman who measured 
you was one of the Clear People, one of the Clearest ?” 

“But look!” Kay cried now, pointing above the 
roof of their own little brown house. There, deep 
through the crystal was another little brown house. 
“Oh, there are two of everything, stores, houses, 
gardens, mountains! Look! Look!” And he pointed 
down the street to where above other houses and 
other gardens showed in the crystal higher houses, 


THE KEEPSAKE 57 

higher gardens. Over the whole village another 
village hung, overlapping it in places, sometimes 
hardly to be kept apart from it. 

The children gazed and gazed. 

“Come,” cried the Wind Boy then. “Come with 
me up into it!” 

But how were they ever to get into it! There it 
was, that other village, clear as light to their eyes, 
but so distant from their understanding that they did 
not see how they were ever to get into it. For no 
matter how near another world may be, it is not so 
simple to step into it as it is to step into another 
room. The children knew that without being told. 
Perhaps it was the crystal light about the Clear 
Land that they felt they could not get through. 

But the Wind Boy laughed at their doubt. He 
took Gentian’s hand and she took Kay’s, and they 
started running. 

Nan waved them good-bye and went in to her 
window-washing. 

They ran around behind the little brown house, 
jumped the low rope fence there and were away over 
the fields at the back. As they ran, Gentian and Kay 
felt lighter and lighter, until soon they knew that they 
were running just a little above the ground on a 
path of blue spring air. Higher and higher their 
sandaled feet trod the blue air—until they had broken 
through the crystal light and were in the Clear Land. 
They stopped by a lilac hedge, laughing with delight. 

“Our Great Artist lives in there,” the Wind Boy 
said, pointing proudly. 


THE WIND BOY 


58 

“Oh, how can he?” cried Gentian. “Aren’t we 
up in the Clear Land?” 

“Yes, of course. I don’t mean your Artist down 
there. I mean our Artist up here. Not the one who 
doesn’t want children in his gardens!” 

At that minute they heard happy laughter and 
running feet beyond the lilac hedge. Down the 
grassy walks of the Great Artist’s garden boys and 
girls came running. They were all in fluttering blue 
and yellow, purple and silver tunics, and most of 
them in sandals like Kay’s and Gentian’s. They 
were the Clear Children. 

Seen fleetingly as they ran on and past, they 
seemed to Kay and Gentian strangely like their own 
schoolmates. But when some of them came to the 
hedge and stood looking over with wide, clear eyes, 
they looked unlike any human children Kay and 
Gentian had ever seen. There was a light across 
their brows and over their smiles that human chil¬ 
dren never have. 

“Oh, have you come to play with us?” asked a 
little girl in blue. And all the Clear Children looked 
at Gentian and Kay with curious eyes. “Did you 
bring them, Wind Boy? And, oh, have you found 
the mask? We were watching the Great Artist 
painting up in his studio, and we saw you coming 
from the studio windows. We thought you must 
have found the mask! 

But the Wind Boy did not answer, and Kay and 
Gentian were too shy. You see, their schoolmates 
down in their village had laughed at them and teased 


THE KEEPSAKE 


59 

them and not wanted their friendship. So here, 
even in this Clear Land, they were a little doubtful 
of friendliness. 

The Wind Boy was standing, head dropped, dig¬ 
ging his bare toes into the soft turf. 

“Say you’ve found the mask and torn it up,” cried 
a boy about his own height, jumping the hedge and 
going up to the Wind Boy. 

The Wind Boy shook his head without looking. 
“Not yet,” he said. 

All the Clear Children fell silent at that and grew 
troubled for a minute. Then, as though they had 
forgotten the Wind Boy they turned back to one 
another and their play. The boy who had gone up 
to the Wind Boy drew back, too, but before he leapt 
over into the garden he smiled at Kay and Gentian. 
“Coming?” he asked. “We’re off to play Hide- 
and-Seek among the beeches.” 

“Go on,” whispered the Wind Boy, giving Gentian 
a shove towards the hedge. “You’ll have great fun. 
I’ll stay around and watch.” 

“But won’t you play too?” asked Gentian, disap¬ 
pointed. 

“No. Can’t you see they don’t want me?” 

“If they don’t want you I don’t want them!” 
But she looked wistfully after the Clear Children for 
all that. 

The little girl in blue and the boy who had gone up 
to the Wind Boy had not run on with the other chil¬ 
dren. They both stayed, waiting. 

“Do go!” the Wind Boy urged Gentian and Kay 


6o 


THE WIND BOY 


again. Then he added indifferently and proudly, 
stretching his arms, “ I’m too sleepy to play anyway/’ 

So Kay and Gentian, with many backward glances 
toward the Wind Boy, ran away with the Clear 
Children to the beech wood. 

Never had Kay and Gentian had such fun at Hide 
and Seek with playmates even in their mother coun¬ 
try, in their old home village! One reason, perhaps, 
was because they had never before been able to 
climb the air to hiding places in trees. If you your¬ 
self have never run up and down blue air with your 
body as light as a bird’s wing then you cannot know, 
you can only dream, what delight was theirs. 

At last, at one moment in the game, Gentian ran 
up the air to the very top of the tallest, biggest beech 
that she could see anywhere. But she found that a 
little girl was ahead of her, curled into a nest of fork¬ 
ing branches, quite hidden by thick leaves. 

Gentian was about to look around for another, 
lower place to hide, but the little girl whispered her 
to stay. “There is room enough,” she said, curling 
herself into smaller space against one side of the nest. 
“See!” 

So Gentian crept in beside her and nestled down. 
“We’re like two birds!” she whispered. “Such 
fun!” 

The little girl could not answer at that minute, for 
they heard the Clear Child who was It come running 
through the woods to stop directly under their tree. 
But she looked at Gentian, curious but smiling. 
Then the boy, hunting below, suddenly ran up the 



“We're like two birds” she whispered. 
“Such fun!” 


61 













THE KEEPSAKE 63 

air—for his sandals were the kind that let him— 
and came very near to the girls’ hiding place. The 
two little girls hardly breathed, but their eyes laughed. 
After a minute the Seeker ran on and away, and then 
they laughed out loud, but softly. 

“How could he help seeing us,” wondered the little 
girl in blue—for it was she. 

“We were so still,” Gentian said. “And the leaves 
are so thick. I didn’t see you, you know, when I 
came up.” 

“I am going to tell you my name,” the little girl in 
blue then said softly, and a little shyly. “It is Aziel. 
Will you call me by it ? And will you play with us 
often?” 

“Oh, I will,” Gentian promised. How different 
Aziel was from the girls in Gentian’s school down in 
the unfriendly village! 

“I am Gentian. My father named me that. 1 
live in the little brown house down in the other village 
—the one beside the Artist’s big one. We have only 
Mother now, for Father went to the war, and we were 
driven out of our village, and now he cannot find us. 
Mother says he is hunting and hunting all over the 
world, and some day he will come to where we are. 
If he could only know how Kay and I can climb the 
air now he would be so glad. He used to make up 
stories about just such things for us. He had the 
bluest eyes!” 

It was a very long time, indeed, since Gentian had 
said so much to any stranger. Even when at home 
she was apt to think most of her thoughts quietly to 


THE WIND BOY 


64 

herself. But then she had never been with a little 
girl just her own age who seemed so friendly and un¬ 
derstanding. 

“What pretty sandals you have, ,, Aziel said. 
“How splendid that you measured for silver ones!’’ 

“Yours are pretty too! They are so shining!” 

“Yes, they have as much light in them. But they 
haven’t all the pictures. And they can’t climb the 
air!” 

It was true. Aziel’s sandals were shining and 
beautifully made. But they were blue, and there 
were only a few bees and birds pictured in them. And 
they could not climb the air. 

“I got mine from the Shoeman in the little store 
next to the big store down in our village. If you 
should go there he might give you some just like 
these.” 

Aziel laughed merrily. “No, he wouldn’t, for he 
couldn’t! ” she cried. “ Don’t you know that he gives 
you only the sandals that you measure for? Some¬ 
day, when he tips my face up to the sunlight I shall 
measure for silver ones too. Then he will be as 
pleased as I shall be. He wants us all to have silver 
ones, you know. But I’m better off than the poor 
Wind Boy. He hasn’t any at all!” 

Then she added, “If he’d only find the mask and 
tear it up so that it would never frighten children 
any more, the Shoeman would give the Wind Boy 
sandals fast enough, though. He always had silver 
ones, like yours, Gentian, before.” 

“But he climbs the air!” 


THE KEEPSAKE 65 

“Oh, that is because he has wings! Of course he 
can fly. He was born with wings. No matter what 
he did he would not lose them” 

But now that Gentian had been reminded of the 
Wind Boy she was not so happy—not quite. She 
remembered his proud but shamed look when he 
said he was sleepy anyway and did not want to play 
with the Clear Children. Kay had believed him. 
Boys are like that. But Gentian ought to have 
known better. She did know better now, remember¬ 
ing his look when he had said it. She knew now 
that he had not been happy when they had all run 
off so and left him. Why, he must have felt some¬ 
thing the way she and Kay felt when their school¬ 
mates ran away from them, and would not play!” 

“Im going to stop playing Hide-and-Seek and go 
to find him,” she said suddenly. “It must be horrid 
not to have any one to play with! Kay and I always 
had each other anyway, and he hasn’t anybody!” 

“ But how will you be able to play with him in your 
silver sandals?” Aziel asked, wondering. 

Gentian looked at her, not understanding at all. 

“Why, how could they keep me from playing with 
him ? I’d rather not have them at all, if they could! ” 

Aziel stayed very quiet, her eyes dropped, thinking. 
Then she lifted them and looked at Gentian who was 
waiting for her to say good-bye. “Perhaps you’re 
different. Perhaps you can be like that, because you 
are a human child, and not exactly like us,” she said, 
but still wonderingly. 

But before Gentian said good-bye she reached 


66 


THE WIND BOY 


down into her pocket and took out something. “I 
want to give this to you, Aziel,” she said. “ It will be 
a keepsake, you know.” She offered it shyly. 

Aziel understood about keepsakes. The Clear 
Children are not so different from human children as 
all that. She took it eagerly. It was Gentian’s 
greatest treasure, a piece of quartz, with a bit of 
gold at its heart. 

Aziel was as delighted with it as Gentian had been 
ever since the hour she found it. “There’s a tiny 
gold bird in it!” she cried, looking closely. “Seeits 
wings spread out!” 

Gentian clapped her hands. “Oh, you see it too? 
I saw that the minute I picked it up by the spring! 
But Kay said it didn’t look like a bird at all. And 
even Mother couldn’t see it! You will keep it,” 
she added, shy again, “To remember me by?” 

“Oh, yes,” Aziel promised, her face sparkling, 
holding it out on her palm in the crystal light. 

“Good-bye then. I’ll come back to play with 
you some time soon again.” 

Gentian crept out through the green leaves that 
closed behind her, hiding Aziel. Then she stood up, 
and ran down the air to the fern-grown floor of the 
wood, and sped away to look for the Wind Boy. 


CHAPTER VI 


NOON IN THE TULIP GARDEN 

B UT the Wind Boy was not by the hedge where 
they had left him. Gentian ran almost the 
whole length of it calling, “Wind Boy, I’ve 
come back to play with you. ,, But no Wind Boy 
answered. 

At last she grew a little discouraged, and in her 
discouragement she sank back out of the Clear Land. 
But she sank into the Artist’s tulip garden, and that 
is one of the most beautiful places in the world; 
so she could not mind too much having lost the Clear 
Land. 

The tulip garden was the very furthest garden in 
the Artist’s estate. Beyond it there were nothing 
but fields and meadows stretching away to the woods. 
But it was the most beautiful garden of all, and the 
most famous. People traveled long distances to see 
it, and forever after talked of it when tulips were 
mentioned. 

The garden was all in bloom now. There were 
banks and banks and fields of tulips, red, yellow, 
white, purple—and all still and brilliant in the noon 
sun. Right in the center several grassy paths met, 
and there was a grassy mound that some day was 
67 


68 


THE WIND BOY 


to have a fountain, when the Artist could find a 
statue beautiful enough and fitting to stand in that 
place. But Gentian knew nothing of this. She won¬ 
dered why the grassy mound was there, and why all 
the paths led to it. 

As she drew near to the grassy place she saw right 
in the centre of it a patch of purple. Just at first she 
thought it was a plot of purple tulips set off by them¬ 
selves, but she knew better at once; for it was the 
Wind Boy, lying on his back, with his arms over his 
eyes, his purple wings wide beneath him. There in 
the hot noon sunshine, among the still, bright tulips, 
he was sound asleep. 

Gentian crept near on tiptoe. Her approach made 
not a stir among the flowers, hardly a stir in the air. 
She went down softly on her knees beside the Wind 
Boy, for she did not mean to wake him. But for all 
her care, he stirred in his sleep. She sank back on her 
heels, and waited. He flung his arms wide, turned 
on his side, and then lay still again. The warm noon 
sunshine was now square in his face, but he did not 
open his eyes. 

“I will stay here quietly,” Gentian thought. “I 
will be as quiet as the sunshine and the tulips. And 
when he wakes he will be surprised, and glad that I 
came to find him.” 

So she waited, looking at him. His wings were 
purple, the purple of early morning when it touches 
the tips of tall trees. Gentian knew that purple, 
for every morning she watched it spread from tip 
to tip of the cherry-tree boughs outside her window. 


NOON IN THE TULIP GARDEN 69 

as the sun was coming up. For one instant all 
the cherry tree would stand a-gleam with purple 
aureoled with gold; then it was gone, not to come 
again until to-morrow as the sun rose. That moment 
of purple in the cherry tree made Gentian happier 
than all the cherry blossoms. But she never saw it 
more than in a flash—not all the tree purple together! 
And now, here was the same wonderful thing in her 
new comrade’s wings! And she could gaze and 
gaze, and it never faded! 

But for all the purple of his wings, and the sunlight 
in his curls, Gentian still saw the cloud across his 
bright brow, and even over his closed eyes, with their 
golden eyelashes shut down on his cheeks. 

‘‘Oh, if I can only help him to find the Masker,” 
she thought, “and get back the mask! I won’t be 
afraid of it any more, anyway. I shall grab at it, 
as Nan did, or run after it. I’ll be braver than the 
Policeman and cleverer. Oh, I hope it comes to¬ 
night, right up to our window again.” 

But at that minute, she heard steps. The tulips 
did not stir, but Gentian felt that they began to wait 
expectantly, and were looking off over one another’s 
heads to see who was coming. They were not heavy 
footsteps, but that noon stillness had been so very 
still that sounds could be heard a long way off. 

Gentian was troubled, and her heart began to beat 
very fast indeed. For well she knew that whoever 
it was would not expect to find a little girl here in the 
tulip garden, a little village girl who was not allowed 
here at all. She waited, wide-eyed, troubled. 


THE WIND BOY 


70 

And then the Artist himself came up a flight of 
stone steps, and down one of the grassy paths of the 
tulip garden, toward the place where she waited, 
kneeling. Gentian had never seen the great Artist 
so near before, and in spite of her fast beating heart 
she looked at him with interest. He was very tall 
and looked to Gentian’s eager eyes like the great 
Artist that he really was. And Gentian thought 
strangely, “He is something like the Wind Boy.” 

Yes, in spite of his being almost an old man, with 
iron gray hair and many lines around his mouth and 
eyes, Gentian could see that he was something like 
the Wind Boy. His hair grew all in thick, clustering 
curls. That may have been the reason. But I 
do not think so. I think that Gentian saw deeper 
than that, and that it was something winged that she 
noticed. 

But whatever it was, it was enough to stop her 
from being afraid. “He’s not so different from the 
Clear People,” she said to herself as he came nearer 
and nearer down the narrow grassy path. 

The Artist was surprised enough to find a strange 
little girl sitting back on her heels in the very centre 
of his precious tulip garden by the fountain that was 
to be. But he did not glance about, even for an 
instant to see whether any tulips were broken or 
gone or trodden down, for he knew right at once that 
this especial little girl had walked softly, and loved 
the garden. 

He came quite close to her and stood looking down, 
not smiling but kindly. 


NOON IN THE TULIP GARDEN 71 

“Good morning,” he said. “I didn’t expect to 
find a little girl here, a little stranger-girl that I have 
never seen anywhere in the world before. Who are 
you, please?” 

But now that Gentian was not afraid of the Artist 
any more, she remembered the Wind Boy at her knees. 

“Sh,” she said, her finger to her lips. “Please! He 
is asleep, you see.” 

The Artist was puzzled, for he could not see the 
Wind Boy at all. Perhaps you could not have 
either, had you been there! 

“Who is asleep?” he asked, looking all about. 

“Here. The Wind Boy,” Gentian whispered. “I 
found him sound asleep like this. I’ve been staying 
still ever since thinking about his purple wings. They 
are like the morning-purple—only they stay so. 
The morning purple goes so quickly you wonder 
whether it was true. But these you know are 
true.” 

The Artist still looked down at the little girl, smil¬ 
ing now. He liked her there in her sky-blue frock 
with her hair the color of shining copper, her blue- 
gentian eyes looking so friendlily up into his. “I 
must paint her some day like that,” he thought. “No 
child in the village has such fairy-gold hair. Who 
can she be?” 

“So it’s the wind that is asleep?” he asked, but 
softly as she had begged him to. “Yes, I knew that 
the wind went to sleep some minutes ago, just before 
the bells rang for noon. But did he go to sleep right 
here in my tulip garden? And you can see him?” 


72 THE WIND BOY 

“No, not the wind itself,” said Gentian. “This 
is the Wind Boy. It isn’t quite the same I think.” 

Now, because there was something winged about 
the Artist he knew that the child might be right, and 
that the fact that he couldn’t see had nothing to do 
with it. So he said, “I will be very soft then. And 
you shall go on watching and thinking about the 
Wind Boy’s purple wings. Only do tell me, please, 
what is your name and where do you live. Or are 
you a little Wind Girl, and live in the blue sky?” 

Gentian laughed at that, merrily, softly. But 
she became grave at once. 

“I am Gentian,” she said. “And I live with my 
mother and my brother and Nan, who has come to 
work for us, in the little brown house right by your 
hedge.” 

“Really? Then I know who you are. Refugees.” 

“Yes, foreigners.” 

The Artist looked down sharply at the way Gentian 
said that. “The little girl has been made to feel 
strange here in our village,” he thought, and did not 
like it. 

For although the Artist was so great and famous, 
and what is called a citizen of the world, still he had 
now made this village his home, and loved it. Some¬ 
times he felt like a father to it, indeed, for many of 
its good things, its library, its beautiful school build¬ 
ing, its concerts he had given it. He did not like 
to think that these refugees here at his very gate 
had been treated unkindly. He did not see how any¬ 
body could treat this little copper-haired girl unkindly. 


NOON IN THE TULIP GARDEN 73 

“I have a little granddaughter, Rosemarie. Do 
you ever play with her?” he asked. “She doesn’t 
call you ‘foreigner’ does she?” 

Gentian shook her head. “No, we can’t play 
with her, ever, so she doesn’t call us anything. Her 
governess doesn’t let her play with village children. 
This morning, in the shoe store, she pinched her arm, 
—not to hurt,—but to remind her.” 

The Artist looked very grave. He stood for a 
whole minute in silence. “So she isn’t let play with 
you?” he said at last. “I must ask Miss Prine why. 
I am not at home all the time, you see, Gentian, and 
I am afraid I don’t know very much what Rosemarie 
is or isn’t allowed to do. Tell me, whom does she play 
with ? ” 

“No one. She’s always alone. We watch her 
sometimes, over the hedge. Her governess or the 
nurse is always near. But Rosemarie smiles at us, 
and almost speaks. We like her.” 

“I am glad you like her. But when you come 
into the gardens as now, doesn’t she play with you 
then?” 

“Oh, but we never play in here. Mother wouldn’t 
let us. We play in our own garden, or in the fields 
behind our house.” 

“But you are here now! How is this?” 

Gentian dropped her head. “Yes, but I came 
down out of the Clear Land—out of the air, you 
know! I couldn’t tell I was landing here. Then I 
saw the Wind Boy asleep, and forgot I must n’t stay.” 

“I am glad you did forget, Gentian. But now 


THE WIND BOY 


74 

you have given yourself away! Didn’t I say you 
were a Wind Girl! I knew you came out of the blue.” 

Gentian laughed her merry laugh. “No, I am a 
human, truly,” she said. “But how can I explain 
to you ?” 

“Don’t try. Perhaps I can understand without 
understanding. I am going away now, softly, so 
as not to wake your Wind Boy. And I must find 
out why you are not Rosemarie’s playmate. But 
I can’t do that to-day, for I am going away on the 
train, if you have not made me lose it. I came for 
a parting look at my tulip garden and to think about 
the fountain that is to be. But good-bye, and when 
I come again, then I shall see you. If you have not 
vanished into the blue!” 

The Artist went away then as quietly as Gentian 
could have wished. When he reached the stone steps 
he looked at his watch, and hurried down out of sight. 
But all the way to the station, and many many times 
before he saw her again, he thought smilingly of 
Gentian, and her talk of morning-purple. 

But their voices must have disturbed the Wind Boy 
after all, for he was stirring again. Gentian stayed 
still as still,—still as the noon sunshine and the tulips; 
but it did no good. His eyes slowly opened. 

Then Gentian, to her great satisfaction, saw that 
those opening, purple eyes were as clear as Aziel’s 
had been, and as happy. But when they were wide 
open, they clouded again, as though waking had made 
him remember the mask and all his troubles. 

“Oh, please,” Gentian cried, “Can’t you keep it?” 


NOON IN THE TULIP GARDEN 75 

She meant, of course, the clear tranquillity that sleep 
had given. 

The Wind Boy at her words sat up quickly, sur¬ 
prised and glad to find her there. 

“Where did you come from?” he asked, with his 
most radiant smile. 

“From the beech wood, up in the Clear Land. I 
came hunting you. I wanted to play with you.” 

“Really?” 

“But now it’s noon. The village bells have rung. 
So I can’t stay and play after all, but must run home 
to dinner. Nan would be sorry if we were late her 
very first day, perhaps.” 

“And I must go back to the Clear Land too,” said 
the Wind Boy. “It is time for my work.” 

“Your work? Do you work?” 

He laughed. “Of course. And I can go on with 
that even if they won’t play with me,” he added, 
proudly. 

“What do you do?” 

“Well, to-day I’m going to work at pulling weeds 
with the Great Artist in his tulip garden, just up there 
above this one.” 

“Does your Great Artist work in his own garden?” 
Gentian asked, amazed. For why the owner of that 
tall house that she had seen in the Clear Land, the 
house with its arches lost in the sky, should come 
down out of it to pull weeds in his own garden, she 
did not see. 

But the Wind Boy was laughing at her surprise, 
though friendlily. “Of course he does. Why not?” 


7 6 


THE WIND BOY 


Gentian could not say why not. “Does Aziel 
work?” she asked instead. 

“Why, of course. Did you think she only played ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“Don’t you work?” 

“Of course I do. I help Mother and I even mend 
sometimes—though I’m not very good at that yet! 
I help Kay weed the garden, too, and much more. 
But I’m not a Clear Child.” 

At that the Wind Boy did a surprising thing. He 
said: “I think you’re nicer than a Clear Child. I like 
you best,” and he bent and kissed her on the mouth. 

Then he laughed and backed away over the grass 
and down among the tulips. He was a little embar¬ 
rassed, but he was not ashamed. Gentian stood 
where he had left her, wide-eyed, surprised. 

“Good-bye,” he called and turned and ran right 
away over the tulips. He ran very fast, and soon 
began to climb the air, his purple wings spread wide. 
Almost at once he was lost to Gentian’s sight in the 
dazzling noon sunlight. 

Gentian was so taken by surprise and by happiness, 
too, that she stood still looking up into the sunlight 
for some time after he had gone. Unless a Wind 
Boy has kissed you at noon in a tulip garden you can 
not know why Gentian stayed so still, wide-eyed and 
thoughtful. All in a flash she had learned about 
comradeship, the comradeship that may be between 
a Human Child and a Clear Child. 

But after a while she remembered the tulips. 
Why, he had backed right down into them, and then 


NOON IN THE TULIP GARDEN 77 

turned and run through them! They must be 
trampled and crushed! 

She ran to look. But not one single tulip was even 
bent. They were all straight and lovely. But they 
were swaying slightly in a breeze that Gentian could 
scarcely feel. She spoke to them gravely. “Oh, 
he ran over you,” she said. “That is why you are 
so smiling and blowing! But he kissed me!” 

Then she ran away down the grassy path to the 
stone steps, down those, across a wide lawn yellow 
with jonquils, and away to the hedge, which she 
crawled through. She remembered, as she ran, that 
it was Saturday and Mother would be at home for 
dinner and the rest of the afternoon. 

Kay was there ahead of her, for he had remembered 
about Mother too. He had heard the village bells 
ringing for noon, even while he played in the air with 
the Clear Children, and he had found the way back 
as quickly as he could. Mother was sitting on the 
step and Kay was beside her, still a little breathless 
from his hurry. 

“Such a day!” he was saying. “And thank you, 
Mother, for these beautiful sandals.” 

“Oh, see mine too,” Gentian cried, as she threw 
herself down on the step at her mother’s knee. 

“Yes, they are very nice sandals. And they look 
strong enough to last all summer,” Detra said. 
“Nan did very well.” 

But the children hardly heard her words, for they 
were staring in sad amaze at their feet. Where were 
Gentian’s silver, pictured sandals, and where were 


THE WIND BOY 


78 

Kay’s golden ones? These things on their feet were 
just strong, sensible leather— the kind of sandals 
all the children in the village were wearing this spring! 

“Where? How?” 

Nan had just come to the door to say that dinner 
was ready, and she saw the children’s sorry faces. 

“Oh, don’t be troubled,” she comforted. “They 
are the very same sandals we got, truly. Only you 
see in the store you were looking at them in the Clear 
light. Now it is Earth light. When you go back 
into the Clear light, you will find they are not changed 
a bit. Yours will be silver there, Gentian—and yours 
gold, Kay.” 

The children were glad and relieved. But Detra 
did not understand what it was all about. She 
thought it must be some game the three had been 
playing together, however, and did not question. 

“Were they magic sandals?” you ask. 

Not a bit of it. For one thing I do not believe in 
magic, and so you will not find any in my story. It 
was really very simple. Think about it for yourself. 
Why need a thing in Clear light look at all the same 
as it looks in the denser light of the sun? It would 
be more like magic if it did, I should say. 

The children, of course, were full of their adven¬ 
tures in the Clear Land. 

“Oh, you ought to have stayed, Gentian,” Kay 
cried, when they were at the table, and eating Nan’s 
good wheaten cakes and crisp lettuce and vegetable 
salad. “I was It finally. And where do you suppose 
that little Blue Girl hid?” 


NOON IN THE TULIP GARDEN 79 

“ Aziel, do you mean,” asked Gentian, glad to know 
her name. “She was in the top of the tallest beech 
when I left her.” 

“Oh, yes. She was found there, and didn’t get 
her goal because she couldn’t run down the air, but 
had to climb all the way down through the branches. 
But when I was It, later, I saw her run right into the 
Artist’s house to hide. She was late in finding a 
place, and I had done all the counting and opened 
my eyes—and there she was whisking in at the great 
front door. We were playing around the house 
then.” 

“I hope you didn’t follow her,” Detra said, a little 
anxiously, for she thought they must be talking about 
some game of Hide and Seek with the village children. 

“ But I did. I ran right after her before I had time 
to think, and found her ’way up many, many flights 
of stairs hiding behind the Artist’s easel! There was 
a big picture on it that quite hid her. I beat her to 
the door, and down the stairs, and would have got 
her goal but I tripped over a rug at the foot of the 
very last one. She jumped right over me, laughing, 
and got there first!” 

But Detra, their mother, was aghast. 

“Kay! Kay! How could you!” 

Then how Kay and Gentian, too, laughed. “Oh, 
not that Artist, Mother. I mean the Great Artist, 
the one who lives in the air!” 

Detra sighed relief. She was sure now that the 
children were just talking about imaginary adven¬ 
tures. So she showed no surprise when Nan, who 


8 o 


THE WIND BOY 


had come in with some fresh cakes and heard Kay’s 
story, now said, “The Artist they mean is very 
different from your Artist over the hedge there. No 
one need be afraid of him. Children are as free to 
run in and out of his house as the air is free to blow 
in and out. 

And Detra smiled up at her, not understanding a 
bit, but glad that Nan was already such friends with 
the children. 


CHAPTER VII 


THE SPRING IN THE WOODS 

S ATURDAY afternoons and Sundays were the 
best part of the whole week for Kay and 
Gentian, for their mother was at home then, 
and could go on walks with them and tell them 
stories. The walks were usually out across the mead¬ 
ows that lay behind the little brown house toward 
the woods and the purple mountains. They never 
could reach the mountains in just an afternoon’s 
walk, of course, but they liked even going toward 
them. And on those days when they walked rather 
fast, and did not ask for too many stories by the way, 
they did reach the woods. 

Detra made up the stories during the week, while 
she worked at her machine in the roaring factory. 
That was odd, for these stories were all about the 
woods and fields and streams and the people, unseen 
by mortals who dwell in them. Tranquil beings in 
tranquil places. Those were the stories she made up. 
But there were others about great men of distant 
times and far-away countries. And added to these 
were the myths of their own land, the land they had 
perhaps left behind them forever. The children 
liked the myths the best. 

3i 


82 


THE WIND BOY 


Between the stories they would talk together about 
Hazar, the father who had lost them, and was now 
hunting them over the world. Indeed, Detra talked 
about him so much and kept him so alive in the chil¬ 
dren’s minds that forever after, when they remem¬ 
bered those Saturday afternoons it seemed as though 
their father had been with them on the walks. 

To-day, though, there were no stories. The chil¬ 
dren were too full of their adventure in the Clear 
Land to talk about anything else. And besides, Nan 
was with them. Detra had helped with the dishes 
so that she might come. For Detra knew from the 
very first that Nan would be at home in the fields, 
walking toward the mountains. She was rather 
like one of those tranquil people that moved through 
Detra’s dreams while she sat or stood in front of her 
machine in the roaring factory. She thought it 
more and more while she listened to Nan’s voice 
answering the children, and saw her short curls 
blown about in the sun. 

But Detra hardly listened to what the three were 
saying; for it was all talk of the Clear Land, and 
Detra still had an idea that that must be a game Nan 
was playing with the children. So she did not in¬ 
terrupt them, but thought her own thoughts instead. 
They were thoughts of Hazar. Would he ever find 
them ? 

And so thinking her own thoughts, Detra gradually 
fell behind. Her children and Nan were walking as 
though they meant to reach the mountains. Indeed 
half the time they did not walk at all, but ran and 


THE SPRING IN THE WOODS 83 

danced, as children run and dance in the Clear 
Land. 

At last the three came to the spring in the wood. 
There it lay cupped deep in green and silvery moss, 

“See,” whispered the children, “When you look 
deep down into it, bending close above, it is like the 
Shoeman’s window, only with bright pebbles instead 
of a silver sandal away off down there.” 

Nan stretched herself out on the silvery moss and 
looked down long into the crystal water. 

“ It is like the window, isn’t it ? ” Kay asked. “And 
it’s like the air around the Clear Land too, once you 
think of it.” 

“Yes, it is like both,” Nan agreed. 

Gentian pulled at Nan’s wood-brown frock. “Do 
you think, Nan, we might get through into the 
Clear Land by way of this spring?” 

Nan sat up. “Yes, I think you might. But it 
would be harder getting back this way, when once 
you had gone. If I were you, I would not hurry 
things, but wait until the Clear Land showed itself 
to me again without my trying.” 

Gentian now stretched herself out on the moss and 
looked down into the clear water as Nan had done, 
her face quite close. Nan and Kay wandered off, 
leaving her there, to look and listen for birds. Kay 
knew a very great deal about birds, and was forever 
adding to his knowledge. It was a proud time for 
him now when he could display his lore before Nan, 
Nan who listened so quietly and was such a splendid 
companion. 


THE WIND BOY 


84 

Gentian hardly heard them go. She was gazing 
at the shining, smooth, many-colored pebbles down 
at the bottom of the water. They were pink and 
purple, blue, green and white. But besides these 
fascinating colored ones, there were many unin¬ 
teresting gray ones. They were uninteresting only 
at first glance, however, for almost at once Gentian 
found that it was the gray pebbles she looked 
at most. She saw now that they were dove-gray 
and worn so smooth, so smooth! Then the longer 
she looked the more surely she saw that the 
gray was just a mask for other color, not pink 
and purple, blue, green and white—but all those 
mingled. The smooth gray pebbles, now to Gentian’s 
eyes, were pieces of rainbow. 

Then her gaze drifted to the centre of the spring 
where the crystal water, pure and clear and cold, 
welled up from under a ledge of gray rock, a rainbow 
rock. As Gentian looked her heart beat fast and her 
lips smiled, for she was learning the secret of the rock. 
What that secret was I cannot tell you, for Gentian 
says it is not a secret in words—you must just 
know it without words, that is all! 

Kay and Nan, by this time, had wandered beyond 
her hearing, and the birds that had flown away when 
the three had come to the spring now returned. 
Gentian heard them singing above her. One little 
yellow-throat, fairy-like behind his black mask that 
had nothing frightening about it, came and perched 
on a young birch shoot just at her shoulder. There 
he sang his “Witchery, witchery, witchery!” over 


THE SPRING IN THE WOODS 85 

and over. His mate was there too, without any 
mask. They never minded Gentian, for she was ly¬ 
ing so still, so still. Perhaps they thought she was 
just part of the wood. 

But a strange thing was happening to Gentian 
now, in spite of all her stillness. She was looking 
down through the crystal spring into the Clear Land. 

“ But the Clear Land is up, not down,” you cry. 

Yes, of course. Well, Gentian was looking up 
through looking down, that is all. It can be done. 

She was seeing into the Clear Land as through a 
window pane. The window pane was the crystal 
spring. But she would never have known it was the 
Clear Land, and not just a reflection of the wood 
where she lay had it not been for the crystal light, for 
she was looking into another beech wood and there 
was a spring there cupped in silvery and green moss. 
It was the other spring, of course, the spring that 
overhung this one where she was really lying. 

So far, this other place was the same as that place 
where she lay, save for the crystal light. But there 
were two people by that other spring, the Wind Boy 
—and her mother! 

Yes, there was Detra in the Clear Land, sitting 
crosslegged on the moss like a schoolgirl; and there 
was the Wind Boy on the opposite side of the spring 
from her, lying moody and silent, staring into the 
water. Gentian had never seen her mother like this. 
Her face was so shining and carefree. But that was 
not it. There is no way to tell you—but she was 
rather like a larger Clear Child. 


86 


THE WIND BOY 


Gentian was still for a while with wonder. But at 
last she cried, “Mother!” 

At her cry the yellow-throat perched on the young 
birch shoot at her shoulder, dropped his song in the 
middle and flew startled away. 

But Detra did not turn her clear eyes to Gentian. 
For Gentian was only seeing through into the Clear 
Land; she was not in it herself, and there was no way 
for Detra to see or hear her. 

No. Instead of turning at Gentian’s cry Detra 
smilingly spoke across to the Wind Boy. Gentian 
heard not a word of what she said nor the Wind Boy’s 
reply. But she could see that the Wind Boy laughed 
as he answered, and for the moment forgot his moodi¬ 
ness. And in that moment of his laughter Detra 
worked quickly with her strong, beautiful fingers on 
the little image of the Wind Boy that was standing 
upright in the moss before her. She was trying to 
catch the laugh in the plastilina. 

Why, Detra had not had the statuette when they 
all came across the meadows together! Gentian was 
sure of that. How was it there with her now then? 
And how had she found her way through to the Clear 
Land ? 

“Mother,” Gentian cried again. And at that 
second cry, the birds that had alighted farther off 
than the yellow-throat and not been disturbed by 
the first cry stopped their songs too, and flew away. 
Gentian was left alone in the silent wood. And 
Detra, seen through the crystal water, did not turn 
her eyes toward the cry—she only went on working 


THE SPRING IN THE WOODS 87 

at the plastilina with swift beautiful fingers and 
talked to the Wind Boy. Gentian saw her lips mov¬ 
ing. 

Gentian was frightened now. She reached towards 
her mother. At the instant of her gesture the spring 
was a window no longer; it had become just a spring, 
and Gentian’s arms were in the water. The other 
spring was gone, the Wind Boy and her mother. 

She stood up then and looked all about her in the 
wood. How silent! Not even the sound of wings 
stirring amid leaves! She called, “Kay, Kay! Nan. 
Hello! Where are you gone to? Nan!” at the very 
top of her voice. 

“Hoo-oo,” from a long way off through the trees. 
It was Kay’s reassuring voice. And then came 
“Ho-ooo.” That was Nan, clearer and higher, like 
a bird-call. 

Gentian fled from the still spring and ran toward 
the voices. She met Kay and Nan in a meadow of 
bracken in a little ravine. 

“What is the matter, Gentian?” Nan asked the 
minute she saw Gentian’s face. “What has hap¬ 
pened?” 

But Gentian could only say, “Where is Mother? I 
want my mother.” 

“Why, we left her at the edge of the woods hunting 
violets. You know that. It is not far away!” 

“Oh, do you think she will truly be there in the 
sunshine just hunting for violets? Do you think so, 
Nan?” 

^ “Yes. Why not?” 


88 


THE WIND BOY 


But Gentian found no words for the sadness and 
trouble of her heart. If you had seen your mother 
so near, and called to her, and she could not hear or 
see you, I think you would have felt the same. 

“Oh, let us hurry then and find her. Hurry!” 

So the three ran away through the bracken to the 
edge of the woods. And there, standing and looking 
about, they at first saw no Detra. Gentian was 
about to call “Mother!” in a much louder and wilder 
way than she had called at the spring. But the 
call stopped at her lips. For there, just in front of 
them, down in the grass, a large bunch of gathered 
violets beside her, lay Detra sound asleep in the 
sunshine. 

Kay thought, “How tired and pale she looks! Oh, 
why can’t I go to work in that roaring factory, and 
let her stay at home.” 

Nan thought, “The sun and the meadow were just 
what she needed.” 

But Gentian thought nothing at all. She flung 
herself upon her mother with a dozen kisses. 

Detra sat up, surprised out of sleep, drawing the 
back of her hand across her eyes. Her dark hair 
came slipping and sliding down around her shoulders 
as the pins loosened. Kay found them for her, 
though, quickly, searching in the long grass. Then 
still sitting there in the sunny grass that came almost 
up to her shoulders, Detra wound up her smooth hair 
and pinned it high into place. Her eyes were clear 
with sleep, and her lips smiling. 

Gentian watching her, silently contented, thought, 


THE SPRING IN THE WOODS 89 

“Why she looks just as she did at the spring in the 
Clear Land. But where is the statuette?” 

Detra, glancing up at her little girl caught the 
happy light in her eyes. “What is it, Gentian?” 
she asked. 

But Gentian only asked, “Did you have a dream, 
Mother, while you slept here? Were you, perhaps, 
dreaming?” 

“No.” Detra shook her head, quite certain. “No, 
no dreams at all. Just deep, deep sleep.” 

And Detra was right; she had had no dreams at 
all, only the best sort of sleep there is out there in 
the sunshine. 

Then they went home across the meadows. Only 
this time Gentian stayed back with her mother and 
carried the violets loosely in her pinafore, not to crush 
them. 

Nan and Kay went on ahead and were home long 
before they were, getting supper ready for them. 
But Gentian never told her mother how she had seen 
her through the crystal spring. Somehow, it was too 
sad to talk about. 


CHAPTER VIII 


THROUGH MUSIC 


HAT night Detra brought out the Wind Boy 



and worked on his mouth, trying to make it 


A smile as it should, a Clear Land smile. But 
she sighed often, for in spite of her long sleep and rest 
in the meadow grass that afternoon she was not suc¬ 
ceeding. Gentian heard her mother’s sigh. 

“Just wait, Mother darling,” she said. “When 
Kay and I have caught the Masker and got the mask 
you can get the Wind Boy right, for then he will be 
happy. He will be as happy and clear-eyed and 
smiling as the other Clear Children. Only wait for 
that. Mother!” 

Detra drew the back of her hand across her eyes. 
“Perhaps,” she said. “But you must try hard to 
help him toward happiness, children, for until he 
is happy and carefree how can I make him so?” 

But then she shook herself, as though from a 
dream, and pushed the statuette away from her, 
away to the opposite side of the table. Laughing 
she stood up, stretching her arms out sleepily. 

“Come, children,” she said. “I am already half 
asleep. That’s the long walk. I will go to bed with 
you to-night, and now it is time.” 


90 


THROUGH MUSIC 


9 i 

How pleasant it was to have Mother going up the 
stairs with them, and to bed at the same time! Oh, 
they wished that every Saturday they might go so 
far that she would be so tired. 

But Nan in spite of the walk was neither tired nor 
sleepy. When the dishes were done and the floor 
brushed up, and the milk bottles put out at the back 
door, she blew out the lamp in the kitchen and went 
out to sit on the doorstone in the spring starlight. 

And as she sat there, as still and softly luminous 
as the night, her head back against the doorpost, her 
eyes half shut, a sudden breath of sweet wind came 
down to her out of the cherry tree. She lifted her 
eyes as though the sweet wind had spoken to her. 
There was a parting in the high flowery branches, 
and out through it, from his secret place of watching, 
came the Wind Boy into the evening air. Softly 
and lightly on halfspread wings he drifted down and 
stood by Nan on the doorstone. She moved to one 
side to make room for him. 

“I’ve been up there all evening watching for that 
old Masker,” he told her. “But it never came at 
all to-night. And now it won’t, I suppose, for it’s 
long past twilight. It’s no use.” 

“Don’t give up,” Nan said softly, so as not to 
waken the sleepers in the house. “Other twilights 
are coming, and in one of them you will surely get 
back your mask.” 

The Wind Boy grew silent. Nan did not look at 
him, and grew silent too, for she knew that more than 
he had told her was bothering. She was sorry, but 


92 THE WIND BOY 

until he should speak she did not know how to com¬ 
fort him. 

After many minutes he leaned toward her, putting 
his hand on her knee. He said, turning his head 
away, “That little girl asleep up in the house there 
promised to help me.” 

So that was it. “She will help you, and Kay will 
help too. They both mean to. But to-night they 
were sleepy from their long walk, and besides this is 
their mother’s day. But when next the Masker 
comes wandering around in the twilight, be sure Kay 
and Gentian will be ready.” 

The Wind Boy raised his head up at that and Nan 
saw that he was cheerful again, that is as cheerful 
as he could well be while he was shut away from his 
Clear Land playmates and must go without his 
silver sandals. 

After that they said no more, but stayed silent and 
still as the starlight in friendly company. It was late 
in the evening that the Policeman on his final rounds 
and taking a last look about for the Masker stopped 
at the little swinging gate to look hard at Detra’s 
doorstone. 

“It almost seems as though there’s somebody 
there,” he whispered to himself. But when he had 
leaned over the gate and looked longer he shook his 
head. “Just starlight glimmering on the stone,” 
he smiled to himself. “I’m beginning to see people 
in mere starlight! Well, that’s no worse than seeing 
mountains in a girl’s eyes. What’s coming over me! ” 

Puzzling about the odd tricks he was beginning to 



He drifted down and stood by Nan on the doorstone. 


93 












































THROUGH MUSIC 


95 

play on himself he moved away toward his home and 
his bed. 


Then came Sunday morning. As always on Sun¬ 
day Detra took her children to the village church. 

“Is Nan 
coming too ? ” 
the children 
asked hope¬ 
fully. 

“Would you 
like to?” Detra 
asked Nan. 

But Nan 
could not, for 
she had 

brought no hat 
with her when 
she came from 
the mountains 
answering 
Detra’s adver¬ 
tisement. She 
had not 

thought about 
church. “But 
I will cook you 
a good Sunday dinner,” she promised. “I am going 
to try a receipt I learned in the mountains, honey 
cakes. That will be dessert. You will want to go 



Going to Church , 








96 THE WIND BOY 

and live in the mountains yourselves, once you have 
tasted them.” 

So with many a backward glance, for it would have 
been fun to watch Nan making those honey cakes, 
the children went off with their mother to church. 

Perhaps you like going to church so well that you 
wonder at Kay’s and Gentian’s dragging feet, and 
backward glances. But then you go to church in 
your own village, where you are at home, and can 
understand all the words of the hymns and the words 
of the minister. Now these children were even more 
bewildered in church than in school, and more un¬ 
comfortable. Partly this was because of their clothes. 
To church they must wear the same faded blue that 
they wore to school, and all the other children who 
came to church with their mothers and fathers were 
dressed in “best” clothes. Gentian and Kay felt 
that they were well stared at for daring to go to 
church in their every-day garments. 

But their greatest grief was Detra. She was truly 
so beautiful, their mother Detra, but no one in 
church could know it. For there she was in her dark 
cape, the cape she wore to the factory every day and 
that the children hated. It covered her from her 
head to her heels. But that was just as well, for 
under it was only the old black smock dress that she 
wore daily. Detra, it is true, had embroidered a 
bright bunch of buttercups on both her pockets, and 
that made it gayer. But the dress was too shabby, 
in spite of the buttercups, to show at church. 

And then she had covered her smooth, dark hair, 


THROUGH MUSIC 


97 

that looked so beautiful wound high on her head, with 
a small black turban. “Why,” Kay said to himself 
now, for the hundredth time as they walked along 
toward church, “it's just as though Mother were a 
candle only all snuffed out by these horrid clothes!” 

But the children had never told their mother how 
they felt about church, and if she guessed, she never 
told them that she guessed. For Detra knew that 
it was best, if you want to become at home in a land, 
to go to church there. 

The village church was white with a white, high 
steeple. It stood at the top of a little hill over the 
town. When the children and their mother, to-day, 
reached the hill they saw that it must be later than 
they had thought, for there was no one on the side¬ 
walk at all, walking up toward the church. They 
hurried their pace. And when they reached the door 
they heard the music of the first hymn. It floated 
out to them through the open windows. 

Oh this would be worse than ever, going in when 
everyone was before them and the service begun! 

But when they had reached their own places Kay's 
heart suddenly glowed warmly, for this, he saw at 
once, was to be one of the few better Sunday morn¬ 
ings. Rosemarie was in church. She stood at one 
end of her grandfather's long pew and Miss Prine 
at the other. She was all in white to-day, with soft 
hemstitched ruffles at her neck and wrists. Her 
dancing dark curls were lost under a wide white leg¬ 
horn hat with a wreath of daisies, buttercups and 
bachelor-buttons around the brim. 


98 


THE WIND BOY 


But she could not smile at Kay, the smile that said 
so much, for her pew was ’way down in front, and Kay 
could only see her back and now and then the side 
of her cheek. 

This was just a little village church, and so there 
was no pipe organ to comfort the refugees’ hearts with 
its noble, swelling tones. There was just a little 
“parlor organ”, and Miss Todd, their school teacher, 
was playing it to-day instead of the regular organist. 

“Miss Todd looks different somehow, doesn’t she?” 
Gentian whispered to Kay while Detra was finding 
the place in the hymn book. 

Kay tore his eyes from the beautiful wreath of 
flowers around the brim of Rosemarie’s leghorn hat 
and looked at Miss Todd at the organ. It was true, 
her church expression was very different from her 
school expression. 

“School puts her out, I guess, the way Mother’s 
clothes put her out,” Kay whispered back. And 
Gentian nodded, for she and Kay understood each 
other very well, even when queer things like that 
were said that most people wouldn’t understand ex¬ 
actly. At school Miss Todd was very brisk and 
ready. Here in church, playing the little parlor 
organ, she was neither brisk nor ready. But she 
was ever so much more alive. 

The children noticed it even more later when she 
played while the collection was being taken up. Miss 
Todd looked as though she had forgotten the con¬ 
gregation then, the choir and even the young minister 
sitting high above her in his black clothes with the 


THROUGH MUSIC 


99 

turned around collar. She was thinking only about 
the music and what it meant. 

And suddenly as Kay and Gentian gazed at her, 
wondering, they began to hear the real music, the 
high, noble pipe organ tones the composer had heard. 
This new, rich music carried them away, and they 
did not think to be startled. 

It carried them away into church in the Clear Land! 

At least they thought it was church. For there 
were the Clear Children they had played with yester¬ 
day sitting in a large half circle. Were they sitting 
on a crescent-shaped bench ? Kay and Gentian could 
not be sure, for they only glimpsed them for a second. 
Their colored tunics and gleaming sandals, and the 
opal-shaded wings of some, made the half circle seem 
a rainbow arch dropped upon the grass. 

Why the children thought this was church was 
because of the rapt, uplifted faces of the Clear Chil¬ 
dren, and the music, oh more splendid and holy than 
any pipe-organ music, that filled the sky. 

Gentian looked toward Kay quickly to see whether 
he was through into the Clear Land with her. But 
how she knew where to look—that would be hard to 
say, for he was sitting on the bench at the very op¬ 
posite end, at the tip of the crescent. All the Clear 
Children were between them! He was looking to¬ 
ward Gentian, across the crescent too, and their 
eyes met for an instant. Then they smiled, for they 
were glad they had both got through together. 

But the music! The whole sky was throbbing with 
this great music. And in the instant that the eyes 


100 


THE WIND BOY 


of the brother and sister met, the music dropped 
crystal curtains between them. They could not see 
each other now, nor any of the Clear Children. Kay 
and Gentian, each sat alone, and looked out into— 
what? I cannot say. Kay thought afterwards it 
was the ocean stretching away forever, as far as his 
sight could reach. But Gentian was sure it was the 
sky—that she was looking out through the sky for¬ 
ever and forever. 

But whichever it was, the crystal clearness of the 
air made it possible for the eyes of the children to 
see a much greater distance than they ever could 
down here in this denser air. 

And while they looked out into infinity, the organ 
rolled. It shook their very hearts. And then it 
grew still. But when the organ stilled, the infinite 
blue that surrounded the children took up the music, 
not in their ears, but in their hearts. 

No matter how long Kay and Gentian live here on 
this earth they will never forget that instant of church 
in the Clear Land. 

But it only could be an instant because the sexton, 
passing the plate for the collection down in the village 
church called them back. Perhaps the eyes of the 
congregation, following the sexton in his plate¬ 
passing helped too in that calling back. For all the 
people who sat behind them or beside them knew it 
was their turn to put in their pennies, and expected 
them to do it. And as we usually do what we are 
expected, the children came rushing back from the 
Clear Land, and gave their mite to the collection. 


THROUGH MUSIC ioi 

They could hardly, at first, believe that they were 
back in the village church again. But there was 
Miss Todd still playing at the little parlor organ, 
her face alive. And there was Rosemarie down in 
front with the bright wreath around her leghorn hat. 
And there was their mother beside Gentian, but with 
the far-away look in her eyes that the children very 
well knew meant she was thinking about Hazar, their 
father. And hadn’t they just dropped their pennies 
into the bronze plate? Oh yes, this was real enough. 
They had heard the pennies ring a little on the metal. 
Things in a dream don’t ring like that. But even so, 
it was hard for the children to believe that the village 
church was real, so suddenly they had come back into 
it—and so shadowy for a while it had seemed. 

As they were walking home, one on each side of 
Detra, Kay said across to Gentian thoughtfully, “I 
don’t think I shall ever mind church again. Every¬ 
thing feels different now somehow.” 

Gentian had been thinking the same thing. She 
wanted to tell Kay so and to say that now, all because 
of that instant of church in the Clear Land she was 
seeing everything that touched her little life in 
proportion. But she had no words for this, and so 
she was silent, thinking. 

******* 

Nan’s honey cakes were all and more than she had 
promised. And the rest of the dinner was excellent, 
too. For Nan, to-day, had made a very little go a 
long way, and seem even rather grand in the going. 


102 


THE WIND BOY 


“I don’t believe Rosemarie’s having such a fine 
Sunday dinner as this,” Gentian exclaimed when she 
had taken her first bite of the honey cake. 

But Kay said, “Oh, I hope she is. I truly do, but 
I am afraid too she can’t be. Nobody could have 
such good food as this.” 

In the afternoon they sat in the shade of the cherry 
tree, this little family, with Nan too, while Detra 
read them many pages from the most beautiful story 
in the world. But toward twilight, the first thunder 
shower came up. It began with a low rumble away 
off somewhere beyond the purple mountains. 

“Oh dear,” Kay cried, “If it rains the Masker 
won’t be out. I hope it doesn’t rain till dark.” 

But Detra was surprised at that. “I thought you 
dreaded the Masker. I didn’t know you wanted it 
coming around.” 

“Oh, but you see now we’re going to catch it, and 
get the mask away for the Wind Boy. Everything is 
different now,” the children explained. 

But their fears were justified. By twilight great 
sheets of warm spring rain were driving across the 
little garden, and the children were inside, kneeling 
on the bench looking out disappointedly into the 
growing dark. 

“Well, there’s to-morrow’s twilight,” Nan com¬ 
forted them. 

Yes, but before to-morrow’s twilight could come 
they must go to school, for to-morrow was Monday. 
And the children were in the habit of dreading Mon¬ 
day as much as they looked forward to Saturday. 


THROUGH MUSIC 


103 


They were, you see, already forgetting a little the 
new sense of proportion they had discovered in church 
that morning. But though to-morrow was Monday, 
it was to be quite different from any other Monday. 
You shall hear about it. 


CHAPTER IX 


THE OTHER SCHOOL 

HAT Monday morning the minute Gentian 



and Kay had slipped into their seats they 


JL looked to see if Miss Todd had kept her Sun¬ 
day face, the face that was so alive. But alas, she 
had not. Now she was her school self again, brisk 
and businesslike. But the aliveness was gone. 

She began the morning with an Arithmetic exam¬ 
ple, the same for all. “ And those who get the correct 
answer in five minutes shall have turns in making 
up problems for the class,” she promised. “That 
will be interesting, won’t it.” 

Now, although Gentian had been hearing the 
language of this adopted country for more than a 
year, she was still slow at understanding when any¬ 
one spoke as briskly as Miss Todd always did speak 
in school. I must tell you that Gentian was a little 
slower at everything than Kay. It was not that she 
did not think as much and as truly. It was that 
she did not think so quickly. 

And now she knitted her brow over the very word¬ 
ing of the example that Miss Todd had dictated. 
How was she ever to begin figuring until she remem¬ 
bered the meanings of the words? She looked up 


THE OTHER SCHOOL 


105 

at the clock with its moving hands. Her cheeks 
began to get hot. She glanced worriedly across at 
Kay. But he, all unaware of her trouble, was bent 
over his paper, his pencil moving surely and swiftly. 
If he had understood, why couldn’t she! 

On the way back to her paper her eyes met Miss 
Todd’s inquiring ones. 

“What is it, Gentian?” Miss Todd asked. “If 
you have your answer already please bring it to me.” 

Miss Todd must have known there had not been 
time for Gentian to do the problem, especially with 
her eyes wandering around the room! The words 
were spoken only to shame the little girl for idling. 

Gentian shook her head. 

“I suppose that gesture means that you have not 
the answer yet,” Miss Todd said. “Then please 
attend to your work as the others are doing.” 

Gentian looked dutifully down at the paper on her 
desk. But now she found that even the meanings 
of the few words she had understood when she took 
them down had left her. The figures and letters 
danced crazily all together back and forth, and up 
and down on the yellow scratch paper. Her cheeks 
were getting hotter and hotter, for she felt that Miss 
Todd was still watching her. 

It seemed hours to Gentian before the given five 
minutes were up. But Miss Todd’s words then filled 
her with dismay. They were: “Now all put down 
your pencils please, while Gentian gives us her 
answer.” 

Gentian looked at Miss Todd with doubtful sur- 


io6 


THE WIND BOY 


prise. Did n’t she know that Gentian had not made 
one mark on her paper! Had n’t she been watching 
all the time! Yes, Miss Todd’s expression told Gen¬ 
tian that she knew. Well then, why- 

Gentian dropped her head now in the shame that 
Miss Todd thought it well for her to feel. “ I have n’t 
got the answer,” she said in a low voice. 

“I don’t understand. Don’t whisper, please. 
Stand up and repeat what you muttered, loudly 
enough for me and your schoolmates to hear.” 

Gentian stood up by her desk. “I have not got 
an answer. I have not done the problem.” 

“Not done it at all? Not even begun?” 

“No, not even begun.” 

Miss Todd was silent at that, and all the children 
held their breath. 

“How many have done the problem?” she at last 
asked. 

Several pupils raised their hands, and Kay was 
among them. 

“You see,” Miss Todd said to Gentian, “Many of 
the others have finished, while you haven’t even 
begun. I know, of course, that you are slower. But 
you might at least have tried” 

Again she was silent. Gentian still stood. She 
was looking at her sandals, for she had not the heart 
to look anywhere else. What were they all thinking 
of her! And Kay—oh, how ashamed of his sister 
he must be! 

Miss Todd, out of her silence, came to a decision. 
“I must do with you then, Gentian, what I have not 


THE OTHER SCHOOL 


107 


had to do with another child for years! It is an old- 
fashioned punishment, and quite out of keeping with 
my modern methods. But I can think of no other 
way to impress you with your lack of cooperation. 
You must wear a dunce-cap, and stand in the corner 
here behind me for half an hour.” 

A giggle went round the room. But Miss Todd’s 
swift glance sought the gigglers out, and the school 
was as silent as before. Then she made the high 
dunce cap, very quickly and expertly, from an old 
map that she took from a drawer of her desk. She 
pinned it into shape with pins from another drawer. 
Then she beckoned Gentian to her, and when Gentian 
had got there, her eyes still on her sandals, her cheeks 
a hot poppy-red with shame, Miss Todd fitted the 
dunce cap down on her bright, fairy-gold head. That 
done, so snugly there was no chance of its tumbling 
off, Miss Todd turned Gentian about by the shoulders 
and gave her a gentle shove toward the corner. 

How Gentian found the corner safely I do not 
know, for her eyes were quite blurred with tears that 
she was steadfastly winking back. 

“Now,” Gentian heard Miss Todd say to her 
other pupils, “you are not to stare at Gentian any 
more. Kay may stand and give us his answer.” 

Gentian very well knew that Kay’s pleasure in 
being so chosen was entirely spoiled by his shame and 
sorrow for his sister. Her shoulders began to shake, 
and two tears escaped her hardest blinking and rolled 
down her cheeks to splash on the faded blue of her 
dress, and add to its dimness. 


io8 


THE WIND BOY 


“Oh, I mustn’t, I mustn’t cry out loud!” she said 
to herself. “Kay would never forgive me! I must 
stop, stop, stop ! ” 

Now Gentian, in spite of all her gentleness, was a 
brave little girl. And using all the braveness that 
was hers, she did manage to wink her tears away. 
The minute they were gone and her eyes were clear, 
she instantly forgot all her trouble in her utter sur¬ 
prise at what had happened. 

She was not looking at the corner of the schoolroom 
at all. No, she was standing just inside another 
school, and facing it. She knew at once, by the clear 
crystal light, that she had got through her own 
crystal tears, somehow, to a school in the Clear Land, 
the school that hung in the air above her every-day 
school! Why, of course, the school must have its 
other school too, just as the shoe store had its other 
shoe store, the Artist’s mansion its other mansion 
rising into the clouds, and the village church its 
other church! But she had not thought of that 
before. 

This other school was very different from the school 
she had just left back there. Its walls and roof were 
nothing but delicate green vines and white star flow¬ 
ers growing on trellises. It was just a big arbor 
with a grassy floor. And the pupils were sitting 
about, cross-legged on the ground. The teacher, 
though, sat at the end of a low, green garden bench, 
and she was helping a little Clear Child, the youngest 
in the school, with a problem. He was on his knees 
beside her, on the bench, leaning against her shoulder, 



Miss Todd fitted the dunce cap down on her 
bright , fairy-gold head . 


109 








































































THE OTHER SCHOOL in 

watching the figures she was making on the tablet 
in her hand. 

That was why, just at first, Gentian did not guess 
that she was the teacher at all; for in her own school 
no one would think of leaning against Miss Todd in 
that happy, carefree way! 

But the minute the teacher spoke, Gentian knew 
that she must be the teacher; for her voice had such 
sure, clear authority! She was looking at Gentian, 
a little surprised, perhaps, to see a human child 
standing there in her arbor-school. 

“ What is it, little girl ? ” she asked. “ Do you want 
something here?’’ 

Gentian did not answer quickly. I have told you 
she was apt to think slowly. But that was not her 
only reason for forgetting to answer promptly now. 
This teacher was so lovely! Her gown was yellow, 
and fell from her shoulders in soft folds and trailed 
out on the grass beside her like a long, wide sunbeam! 
Her soft, golden hair was braided in two thick plaits 
that lay down her breasts and hung far below her 
knees. Around her brow was a shining circlet of 
star flowers, violets and hepaticas. And that brow, 
because she was a Clear person, was shining and 
wide. 

If you had suddenly broken out of your school into 
its other school in the air, and found a teacher there, 
all made up of light, would you have remembered to 
answer her first question promptly? I think / would 
have done just as Gentian did, and gazed, wide-eyed. 

But when Gentian did remember she said, “Oh, 


112 


THE WIND BOY 

excuse me, please. I am sorry I am so slow! I 
don’t want anything.” 

“You don’t want anything!” exclaimed the 
Teacher. “Are you sure?” 

Gentian laughed then, her merriest laugh, that so 
few people ever heard. “Well, yes, of course, I want 
lots of things. I want my father to find us—and I 
want my mother to have a new frock. I want the 
Wind Boy to get his mask back, too. Oh, I do want 
many things.” 

“But don’t you want anything that we can give 
you here in this school?” asked the Teacher. “You 
must have come for something.” 

“I want to be not so slow at problems. But per¬ 
haps I was born slow, and nobody can help me 
there!” 

At that, the Teacher laughed, and all her pupils 
laughed, gayly, musically. 

“Of course you’re not born slow! What a quaint 
idea! And that is just why you have come to my 
school, then—to learn to think quickly. What is the 
problem that is bothering you at this minute?” 

Gentian went to her and showed the paper, which 
she had kept in her hand. “Here it is,” she said. 
“I can’t even understand the words.” 

“It is the very problem we ourselves were doing 
when you came up! I am helping little Basil here 
with his because he is so small.” Then the Teacher 
turned to her school. “Which of you would like to 
help the little human?” she asked. 

All the Clear Children were eager to help Gentian, 


THE OTHER SCHOOL 


”3 

and they raised their hands to say so. But one little 
girl, away at the farther side of the arbor, in her 
hand held up a little stone, and smiled at Gentian. 
It was Aziel. The Teacher saw the special friendly 
smile, and the keepsake. “I see that you know 
Aziel,” she said. “So she may be the one to help 
you.” 

Aziel rose quickly and came across to where Gen¬ 
tian was standing. The playmates were glad to be 
together again. At once they sat down close to each 
other on the grass, and looked at Gentian’s paper. 

“What is it that you can’t understand?” Aziel 
whispered, so as not to disturb the other children, 
who had now gone back to their work. 

“Well, it’s the words first. What do they mean?” 

Now it is not easy for a little girl of Aziel’s age to 
explain the meanings of words, no matter how well 
she understands them herself. But Aziel tried hard. 
And here in this bright quiet, Gentian found that the 
meanings of the words were coming back into her 
mind all of their own accord anyway. 

“Oh, I understand now,” she said suddenly. “I 
see it all. I’d like to try finishing it for myself, I 
think.” 

“All right,” Aziel agreed. “I’ll do mine at the 
same time, and we can compare answers.” 

So each little girl bent over her knee, and worked 
out the problem without help. And when they were 
done the answers were the same. 

The Teacher came over to look. “Yes, yours 
are both right,” she assured the little girls. “And 


THE WIND BOY 


114 

Gentian has made her figures so round and clear that 
we might all take a lesson from her! I would be very 
proud to have you for a pupil of mine! ,, 

How happy Gentian was made! 

“Oh, I wish I were a pupil of yours!” she cried. 

“Well, even though you belong in the school down 
there,” the Teacher assured her, “still when things 
get too difficult, you know, you may come up to us, 
where you can do your best in bright quiet.” 

“Oh, I shall never dread school again then!” 

“We are going to dance now; would you like to 
stay a while longer and dance too?” 

“But I don’t know how. Mother hasn’t sent us 
to dancing school.” 

“Oh, it’s not that sort of dancing at all. You shall 
see. Only stay.” 

“May we have a circle dance to-day?” begged 
Aziel. “Oh, may it be a circle dance?” 

The Teacher nodded. All the children then joined 
hands in a circle. But how shall I tell you of that 
dance? It was in the Clear Land, you see, and no 
dancing was ever like it down here. 

Gentian’s silver sandals helped her a great deal, of 
course. They were so light, and in the Clear Land 
they could climb the air, remember. 

In a circle, and to the music of the leaves in the 
vine, and a splashing fountain not far off, the children 
started dancing. They danced away out of the 
arbor, over a meadow, tranquil in the crystal light, 
to the music of a stream that ran through it; then 
into a wood, and there to the music of bird songs; 


THE OTHER SCHOOL 


ii5 

over a hill to the music of the light spring wind in 
the long grass; and then up into the blue air—to the 
music of their own happiness! 

Those who were not wearing silver sandals were 
drawn along and up by those who were. And I 
think those dancers felt as the Wind feels in spring 
time when it moves across a cherry orchard, all in 
blossom. 

At last, still in a circle, they came into the arbor 
again, and dropped to rest on the grass. 

The Teacher was waiting there. She took Gen¬ 
tian’s hand, and bending down to her said, “Your 
half hour is up, little Human. Miss Todd wants 
you back. Here is your cap.” 

The dunce-cap, which Gentian had forgotten at 
once on coming into this other school, had fallen off, 
just as she danced out of the arbor. The Teacher 
was putting it back on her fairy-gold head now, but 
smiling so beautifully right down into her eyes as 
she did it that Gentian did not mind the cap a bit. 
Then the Teacher turned her around and gave her 
a gentle push toward—the corner of her own school 
room! 

And it was well that the Dunce cap had been put 
back, for at that instant Gentian felt another hand 
on her shoulder, a hand that turned her around. 
Her eyes were seeing sunlight again, and the four 
walls of her own school room. It was Miss Todd’s 
hand now on her shoulder. The arbor, the Clear 
Children, the other Teacher, where were they? 

They were there, of course, still. It was only that 


ii6 


THE WIND BOY 


Gentian was seeing in sunlight now. not in that other 
crystal, Clear light. 

“Well, Gentian/’ Miss Todd was saying, “you may 
take your seat. And next time, perhaps, you will 
remember at least to start a problem, when I-” 

But Miss Todd forgot what she had meant to 
say in amaze at Gentian’s happy, smiling face. 
Never had she seen a child’s face sunnier in all her 
years of teaching. She had not expected this, of 
course, from a little girl who had been standing with 
her face in a corner and a dunce-cap on her head for 
half an hour. 

And Gentian’s schoolmates were as amazed as Miss 
Todd, for there was no understanding it. 

But Gentian did not notice their surprise. She 
was too full of her experience. She looked up at 
Miss Todd, though, and said, “I have found out how 
to do that example. I couldn’t do it before because 
I didn’t remember what the words meant. But now 
I have remembered.” 

“That is well,” said Miss Todd, a little doubtfully. 
“Then you may do it now on the board for the class, 
explaining it as you go.” 

And Gentian did take a piece of chalk and work 
the problem. She remembered what the other 
Teacher had said about her beautifully formed fig¬ 
ures; and now she tried to make these even rounder 
and clearer than they had been up there. She did 
the figuring quickly, and explained it well. 

And Miss Todd, who was suddenly truly sorry that 
she had made Gentian wear the dunce-cap, said. 


THE OTHER SCHOOL 


ii 7 

“Very well done. Very well done, indeed! But you 
should have told me, Gentian, that you didn’t under¬ 
stand the wording of the problem. I would gladly 
have helped you.” , 

Then came recess and Kay quickly sought his sister 
out. Standing so that their school-mates might not 
see, he squeezed her hand. “Don’t you care, Gen¬ 
tian dear,” he whispered. “If anybody laughs about 
the dunce-cap or even says a word—well, they’d 
better try, that’s all!” 

Kay’s other hand was clenched and his mouth set. 

“Thanks, Kay,” his sister whispered back, squeez¬ 
ing his hand in turn. “But I didn’t mind a bit, not 
after the first. I’ll tell you all about it going home. 
And oh, please don’t fight about me, Kay, no matter 
what they do! You know how Mother hates your 
fighting!” 

But Kay had no need to fight, for there was not a 
single jeer, and no one cried, “Oh, see the dunce.” 
Who would be tempted to mock the happy, confident 
little girl Gentian had become? 

Instead, one little girl called “tag” as she ran by 
at that minute, touching Gentian lightly on the 
shoulder; and Gentian whirled away in a noisy game 
of tag with all the children. But she was not It for 
long, as you must know, for she could run like the 
wind. 


CHAPTER X 


THE SECRET DOOR 


HAT night, the family in the little brown 



house finished their supper before it was time 


JL to light the lamps. The world was just turn¬ 
ing violet, and the sky dimming. 

“We are through early, to-night,” Detra said. “I 
shall have a long evening for the Wind Boy. I am 
going to break him all up, and begin quite over. For 
I shall never be satisfied with him as he is.” 

The children were sorry that their mother was go¬ 
ing to destroy the statuette. It was so almost like 
the Wind Boy they knew, that they had become 
more attached to it than to anything their mother 
had ever made before. 

“But if I do him better?” Detra said. “You will 
be glad then!” 

“ Be sure you keep him the Wind Boy, though,” Kay 
begged. “He is like that you know—only more 
so.” 

Detra laughed at that, but in her heart she knew 
that Kay was right. “Yes, I will keep him the same 
boy,” she promised. “Only I will make him truer.” 

Then she ran upstairs to bring down the statu- 


THE SECRET DOOR 119 

The children were still at the table, although they 
had finished their supper. 

“Outdoors is getting into purple now,” Gentian 
said. “It’s like the Wind Boy’s eyes. Let’s go out 
and see if he’s in the cherry tree yet.” Nan had told 
them that he watched for the Masker there at twi¬ 
light. 

“All right, let’s.” 

But at that minute came the scratching and rust¬ 
ling at the window that the children remembered. 
Quickly they turned their faces. Yes, there in the 
open window showed the mask! The horrid pointed 
ears, the horrid grin froze their hearts, as always be¬ 
fore when they had seen them. They stood, staring. 

Would it jump over the sill and rush towards them 
in the room? It looked as though it might. It was 
staring straight back at them. Then suddenly Nan 
opened the door from the kitchen. She was coming 
in to clear the table. The Masker saw the opening 
door and dropped down out of sight. They heard 
its feet racing away right across Kay’s own garden 
plots. 

Kay forgot his terror at that. He sprang up and 
was away out of the door after the Masker. Gentian 
stayed behind only the briefest instant, screwing up 
her courage, and then she too dashed away. Nan, 
looking after them, smiled, for she had no fear that 
harm would come to them. 

Kay reached the door just in time to glimpse the 
blue cloak of the Masker whisking away through 
the hole in the lilac hedge. Mother, of course, did 


120 


THE WIND BOY 

not want the children to go into the Artist’s garden, 
but Kay very well knew that this would make a differ¬ 
ence. She would be only too proud of him should 
he catch the Masker and capture the mask, no matter 
where he went to do it! 

Seen from behind, and while it was running away 
like this, the Masker was not terrifying at all. Far 
from it. It was just a slim little figure, no taller than 
Kay himself, in a blue cape to its heels. 

Gentian was through the hole in the hedge almost 
as soon as Kay, and by the time he had reached the 
sloping long green terrace running right up to the 
Artist’s front door, she was quite up to him. But the 
fleeing Masker was far ahead, already on the broad, 
gravel drive, running for dear life. Well, it must 
turn about when it reached the house and go in some 
other direction. Then they would have it. They 
took hold of hands and ran on. 

But the Masker did not turn back when it reached 
the house. No, it dashed on and around a corner, 
and was lost to the children’s eyes. 

To their delight now, they heard the whir of wings, 
and saw the Wind Boy a little way above them, fly¬ 
ing fast through the purple twilight. 

“Oh splendid! He’ll catch it surely,” the children 
thought, and followed on. But the Wind Boy did 
not catch the Masker that evening, nor did the 
children. For a strange thing happened. The Wind 
Boy had followed around the corner and overtaken 
the fleeing Masker. He had no thought of failure 
now and glided to the ground, reaching a hand to 


THE SECRET DOOR 


121 


seize the mask. Then suddenly the Masker turned 
about, just escaping his hand, pushed behind a sy- 
ringa bush that grew against the house, threw open 
a little low door in the wall, and was gone. 

The Wind Boy stopped stock still, amazed. Well 
he knew that he could never open a door down here 
in this land. His were a Wind Boy’s hands, strong 
and useful enough in his own Clear Land, but quite 
helpless with anything so heavy as this door. 

When Gentian and Kay came running up, his face 
was clouded indeed. 

“Where did it go?” Kay cried. 

“In at a door behind that syringa bush,” the Wind 
Boy said, with deep disgust. 

“Right into the house?” 

“Yes, right into the house, of course, else I’d have 
got the mask at last. I never came so near it be¬ 
fore.” 

Kay was troubled. “It’ll frighten Rosemarie, 
then,” he cried. “Oh, she’ll be terribly frightened!” 

Then he turned and ran. The Wind Boy and 
Gentian had no idea what he meant to do, but they 
followed to see. Kay was set on doing a very brave 
thing. He ran around the great house and up the 
wide, shallow marble steps to the front door. There, 
standing in the twilight, a determined little boy, he 
pulled the bell. Gentian and the Wind Boy followed 
him. They would stand by. 

The door was promptly opened by a maid servant. 
She stared down at Kay, surprised. “What is it? 
Why do you come to the front door?” she asked with 


122 


THE WIND BOY 

curiosity. A child at the great front door was the 
last thing she had expected to find. 

“Please,” said Kay. “That Masker.—You know 
the horrid thing with long ears and a queer mouth— 
well, it has just now gone right into your house. It 
will frighten Rosemarie.” 

The maid screamed. “The Masker in this house! ” 
she cried, stepping very quickly out onto the marble 
step beside Kay. “Then not a step Til stir back 
until it’s been got out.” 

“But Rosemarie will be frightened,” Kay pleaded. 
“She may be frightened now. You must go to take 
care of her.” 

I do not know whether the maid would have gone 
to see to Rosemarie or not, for anyone could tell that 
she was pretty well frightened herself, had the village 
Policeman at that minute not come up the steps to 
find what the trouble was about. He had seen the 
children at the Artist’s front door and felt they did 
not belong there. “What is all this?” he asked, for 
he had heard Kay’s words. “What will frighten 
Miss Rosemarie?” 

“The Masker,” Kay answered, turning around, 
glad now of the Policeman’s interference, and not a 
bit afraid. “It came to our window and we chased 
it. We followed it right up to the house here and 
then around to the side. It ran in at a door behind 
the syringa bush there. The Wind Boy saw it go 
in at the door.” 

“There isn’t any door behind the syringa bush,” 
said the maid. “You must be dreaming.” 


THE SECRET DOOR 


123 


“And who saw it?” asked the Policeman. 

“The Wind Boy. He came flying past us over our 
heads, and got around the corner first. That is why 
he was in time to see it go in at the little door.” 

“Where is the Wind Boy now?” 

“Why, right here by Gentian.” 

The Policeman looked down at Gentian but he 
did not see the Wind Boy. His eyes were not nearly 
clear enough for that. 

He stared at Kay and Gentian very suspiciously 
then. “Come, show us that door,” he said gruffly. 

“There just isn’t any door there at all, so why 
bother?” snapped the maid. She had begun to get 
over her fright and to think the children impudent 
and mischievous. The Policeman thought them 
impudent and mischievous too. But he remembered 
Nan, and the way he had looked through her eyes 
to the mountains. He hesitated. “F 11 give them 
every chance,” he thought then. “That girl cer¬ 
tainly thinks they are all right. But nevertheless 
there is something very queer about all this.” 

Out loud he said, “Come, anyway, and we’ll make 
certain about the door.” 

But Kay cried, “Rosemarie! What about her? 
Aren’t you going to see that she’s not being fright¬ 
ened ?” 

“You’re right,” said the Policeman then. “If by 
any chance the Masker did get into the house she 
may very well be frightened. Better go in, Beta— 
(Beta was the maid’s name)—and see that the little 
Miss is safe.” 


124 


THE WIND BOY 


‘‘No indeed, I’ll not go a step,” said Beta, fright¬ 
ened again, now that she thought the Policeman was 
taking the children’s story seriously. 

“What? You afraid of the Masker too? Then 
I’ll have to go with you. And you children, don’t 
move a step from here until we get back. I mean 
to go to the bottom of this. Indeed, it’s more my 
duty than ordinary, since the Artist is away.” 

The great door closed, and the children waited. 
They had no temptation to go away. They were 
only too eager to stay and learn whether the Masker 
was caught. The Wind Boy was on tiptoes with 
excitement. The three sat down on the lowest 
marble step, until the great door should open again. 

But it was a long time before the door opened. 
The Artist’s mansion was a very, very big one indeed, 
and there were many rooms, corners, passages and 
closets into which the Policeman had to look to make 
sure that the Masker was not hiding. He was rather 
cross when at last he did come out, for against his 
reason he had hoped to get his hands on the Masker 
at last, and so win the Artist’s praise and reward, 
when he should come home to-morrow. 

“Well youngsters,” he said shortly, “Come now 
and show me that wonderful door that probably isn’t 
a door at all. Miss Rosemarie is busy at her lessons, 
safe and quiet, as you would be if your mother took 
proper care of you, and kept you out of mischief, 
evenings. Where are you anyway?” 

For he did not see them just at first in their place 
on the low step. 


THE SECRET DOOR 


125 

But Kay had jumped up. “Our mother does take 
proper care of us,” cried Kay. “We just followed 
the Masker to catch it, that was all. She would want 
us to do that.” 

“Likely enough,” answered the Policeman, striding 
down the steps. “ But step lively now, and show us 
that door.” 

So Gentian and Kay and the Wind Boy led the way 
around the house to the syringa bush. Of course Beta 
and the Policeman could not see the Wind Boy, al¬ 
though it was his hands that parted the sweet-smelling 
white blossoms that brushed the hidden door. The 
Policeman and Beta thought it was just a little wind 
stirring on the edge of night that did it. But even 
when the flowers were parted they could not see the 
door. Even Kay and Gentian could not see the door. 

Kay and Gentian were startled. Had the Wind 
Boy made a mistake! And what would the Police¬ 
man think about that? Oh, he would mistrust them 
more than ever now. He would think they had lied. 
They were troubled indeed. 

But the Wind Boy said, “Push against the wall 
right here. That’s all the Masker did, and it opened 
just as easy.” 

Kay thought it would be too silly to push against 
the wall where the Wind Boy was pointing; it seemed 
so much like all the rest of the wall there, just wall, 
without a sign of a door. 

The Policeman could not hear the Wind Boy’s 
voice. He only thought to himself, “The wind is 
rising a little.” He began to laugh, not a very pleas- 


126 


THE WIND BOY 


ant laugh, for now he thought he had found the 
children out. They were truly in his words, “bold 
ones and mischief-makers.” 

But Gentian stepped forward and did as the Wind 
Boy said. She pushed against the blank wall with 
all her strength. And the next she knew, she was 
lying flat on her face in a very dark place. There 
had been no need to push so hard, for the door opened 
at a touch! 

But she was not hurt a bit. Up she jumped and 
stood alone in the pitchy dark, for the door had 
swung to behind her. But now that those outside 
knew that there was a door, they pushed it open again 
and let her out. 

“Well, I never,” Beta gasped, poking her head in 
at the door that was now held open by the Policeman. 
“I never heard of such a thing at all. And who’d 
ever guess it? Why, there’s just nothing to show!” 

The Policeman was as surprised as Beta. 

“It’s a secret door,” he said. “That’s what it is. 
We’ll have to see where it leads.” 

“Why, it’s just the coat closet under the back 
stairs,” Beta exclaimed, craning her neck. “A body 
coming in could run right up the back stairs and be 
seen by nobody.” 

“Well then, I shall just have to ask the Artist when 
he returns whether he knews about this door,” the 
Policeman said importantly. “And you, Beta, 
please say nothing about it.” 

“But my master won’t be back until to-morrow,” 
Beta cried. “Until then, am I to sleep in a house 


THE SECRET DOOR 


127 

with a secret door and not even a key in it, and say 
nothing to nobody?” 

“Yes, that is just what you are to do. And you 
children, you too say nothing.” 

The children nodded. It was very exciting, and 
surely very important to be sharing a secret with the 
Policeman. 

But at that minute: 

“Gentian! Kay! Time to come in. Come in.” 
Nan was standing in the doorway of the little brown 
house calling them. 

“So they are looking out for you after all,” said the 
Policeman, but not gruffly now. “I’m glad to know 
it. But I might have trusted that girl to have an eye 
out for you, anyway! She'd know where you were!” 

He meant Nan. In all his life he was never to 
forget her and the far-off mountains he had seen 
through her clear eyes. 

“Are you coming with us, Wind Boy? Do,” whis¬ 
pered Gentian. 

But the Wind Boy shook his head. “No,” he 
said. “I’m going to stay around by this door to 
make sure the Masker doesn’t come out. Oh, if I 
had only caught it!” 

So Gentian and Kay had to run home without their 
new playmate, for Nan was calling again. 

When they had gone, the Policeman said to Beta: 
“You’d better go in too, or the other maids will be 
asking you all sorts of questions. I shall stay here a 
bit to think things over.” 

Beta went, reluctant and grumbling, but not daring 


128 


THE WIND BOY 


to disobey the Policeman. Then the Policeman sat 
down in front of the syringa bush to do his thinking 
of things over at his ease. But his eyes were alert 
and keen enough as they rested on the hidden door 
in spite of all his puzzling thoughts. Beside him, 
waiting too and watching, sat the Wind Boy, cross 
legged, his purple wings folded down his back. 

But the Policeman knew nothing of the Wind Boy. 
Now and then he did hear the rustle of the Wind 
Boy’s wings, as he changed his position a little. 
But if he thought about the sound at all, it was to 
him just the night wind among the syringa flowers. 

So the purple twilight fell deeper and deeper all 
around them, until they were just the faintest out¬ 
lines in the dusk. 

But as the purple deepened, the Policeman, staying 
on so carelessly there in the gathering dew, forgot to 
puzzle about the Masker and the secret door. He 
had fallen to thinking about Nan instead—that 
strange girl who had come to work for the foreigners 
in the little brown house. It is not every day you can 
see far-off* purple mountains just by looking into a 
girl’s clear eyes! 

And the Wind Boy was thinking about Gentian. 
What a brave little girl she had been to run after the 
Masker! Kay was brave, of course. Boys had to be. 
But Gentian was brave because she had promised to 
help him, the Wind Boy! He was sure of that. 

So the Policeman and the Wind Boy thought their 
thoughts without interfering with each other, in the 
purple twilight, on watch at the secret door. 


CHAPTER XI 


GENTIAN AT THE LOOM 

W HEN the children got back to the little 
brown house they found their mother beside 
the lamp and the bowl of tulips, working 
with the plastilina. Already it was beginning to take 
shape again. 

They stopped by her shoulder to watch. She 
hardly knew that they were there, however, she was 
so absorbed in what she was doing. And because 
they wanted the work to go well just as much as she 
did, and because they knew that if they spoke and 
called her mind away, she might do no more that 
night, they said not a word, but after a little quietly 
turned aside. Kay settled down to a book he was 
reading, a story of the sea. And Gentian ran softly 
up to Nan’s attic room. 

Nan was sitting in the open window, mending one 
of Kay’s stockings. Beside her was a heap of brown 
and black stockings belonging to both the children, 
and a torn frock of Gentian’s. Nan was holding her 
work close to the window to catch the very last ray 
of light. 

She looked up at Gentian, and smiled a greeting. 
She knew very well what Gentian wanted, for both 
129 


THE WIND BOY 


130 

nights that Nan had been here Gentian had come up 
to look at, and touch, the starry-brightness nightrobe. 

So now Nan said, even before Gentian had asked 
permission: “Yes. You may open the drawer and 
take it out.” 

“Oh, and may I bring it over there by the win¬ 
dow ? ” 

“Yes, do.” 

So Gentian pulled out the top drawer in the chest 
of drawers; and that, to her, was something like 
opening a door into the night sky—the nightrobe lay 
folded there so blue and starry. 

Gentian lifted it out with her finger tips. She had 
to look to make sure that there was anything there 
but air, it was so light! Slowly, and careful that its 
trailing, wisping folds should not sweep the floor, she 
carried it over to the window, and the last light of 
day. There she sat down on the floor at Nan’s knee 
and held the wonderful robe in her lap. Her face, 
as she bent above it, was full of delight and winder. 

Nan put by her darning to watch Gentian’s face, so 
full of rapture. But Gentian was too lost in the 
happiness of gazing at the starry-brightness to know 
that Nan was looking at her. At last, in spite of her 
delight, she sighed—but ever so softly. 

“What is it, Gentian?” Nan asked in words almost 
as soft as the sigh. 

“Oh, I wonder if I shall ever have anything so 
beautiful!” 

Nan did not answer at once, but stayed looking 
down into Gentian’s lifted blue eyes. Then she said 


GENTIAN AT THE LOOM 


* 3 * 

in a matter-of-fact voice, “Any one who has a night¬ 
gown like this has to make it, Gentian. I do not 
know whether you could learn to make it, but I think 

you might! ” 

“ But where would I ever get the starry-brightness 
to make it of?” 

“Why, you would have to make that starry- 
brightness. That is what I meant.” 

“Well, I could hardly do that.” 

“Why do you say so ? Wouldn’t you like to try?” 

“How could I try?” 

“Trying is the easiest end of it. It is the doing 
that will tell.” 

Gentian was gazing up at Nan with hope and de¬ 
light now in her blue eyes. 

“If you want to try right away, now, to-night, you 
will have to go through into the other house, the one 
above this one. Remember? For the starry-brightness 
can not be made down here, not without giving a 
life-time to it!” 

“Do you mean that little brown house we saw just 
above ours in the crystal light that day with the 
Wind Boy? I am to go up there?” 

“Yes. A young woman who lives in that house has 
promised me that she will help you with the making 
of a little starry-brightness robe just for yourself. 
This morning, when I was tidying my room, I sud¬ 
denly saw the way up into that other house. There 
I found her, and we talked about you and the way 
you came at night to see my starry robe. And she 
herself said she would ask the Great Artist ,—their 


THE WIND BOY 


132 

Great Artist, you know, to set up his loom for you. 
She is expecting you now.” 

“Oh, how kind she is! But what has the Great 
Artist to do with it?” 

“He has the loom and the colors. So it is to his 
house you must go, if you are to weave the starry- 
brightness. Run through now to the other house 
and the kind young girl will take you.” 

Gentian sprang up, and ran to put Nan’s night 
robe back in the drawer. Then she looked all about 
the little attic room eagerly, expectantly. But 
slowly her eager face grew blank. “Oh, where can I 
go through!” she cried. “See, Nan, it is all just a 
hard old plaster wall!” 

“You will have to get very still, and then remember 
what the Wind Boy showed us when he pointed. 
That is all.” 

So Gentian grew very still. She even shut her 
eyes. And she remembered—hard. 

“Are you through?” Nan asked after a minute. 

“Why, no,” said Gentian, when she had opened her 
eyes and glanced about at the attic room, very dim 
now in the dusk. Can’t you see I’m still here?” 

“Well, fm through,” Nan laughed. “And I 
couldn’t know whether you were too, without asking, 
could I!” 

“You’re through! Through to the other house!” 

“Yes.” 

“But that can’t be. You’re here with me.” 

“I am through at the same time. And I do wish 
you would hurry and come too; for I must get back 


GENTIAN AT THE LOOM 133 

to those stockings. There are so many, and Kay 
needs his for school to-morrow." 

Gentian was almost in tears. She believed Nan 
when she said that she was through into the Clear 
Land, although she could not understand how that 
could be, when she saw her here at the same time. 
But there was something in Nan's voice and in her 
eyes that made everyone who listened to her and 
looked at her believe her, no matter how strange a 
thing she said. 

“But what can I do to come through, too?" Gen¬ 
tian begged. 

“Grow still." 

“I am still." 

“I don’t mean that kind of still, still with your 
body. I mean deep-still, still with your heart!" 

So Gentian tried again. But how was she ever to 
grow deep-still when she was so excited! 

“Deep-still. Deep-still. Deep-still," Nan said 
to her, softly over and over. And when Nan’s 
voice stopped, Gentian had grown deep-still. And 
there she was, through into the other house! 

She was standing with Nan in an attic room very 
like Nan’s own. Only, even at first glance, you 
would have known it was a room in the Clear Land. 
For the light was clearest, serenest crystal; and 
though it was almost night here, as in the land below, 
there was no darkness in this twilight—the purple 
dusk was bathed in crystal. 

“I can’t stay with you because of the stockings," 
Nan said. “But if you run down the stairs you will 


THE WIND BOY 


i34 

find that kind young girl waiting for you somewhere, 
I am sure. I told her you would come, you know.” 

“Oh please do stay,” Gentian begged. 

When she had gone up into the Clear Land with 
Kay and the Wind Boy she had felt no strangeness, 
and when she had got through to the other school 
she had not been strange either. But here, in the 
Clear Land’s dusk, in its purple shadows (even if 
they were crystal shadows!), in this empty attic room, 
she did feel strange and alone. “Please stay,” she 
begged. 

Nan shook her head. “No, I must go back. But 
run along down, dear, and bring back with you, if 
you can, a starry-brightness nightrobe.” 

At mention of the starry-brightness nightrobe 
Gentian forgot her strangeness. She stood on tip¬ 
toe to kiss Nan’s cheek, and then without another 
word she ran out of the room and down the stairs. 

In her own house the stairs would have been quite 
dark by now. But here in this other house, she could 
see well enough in the shadows. She went rather 
shyly through the hall down stairs, to the sitting- 
room door. For after all this house that she had en¬ 
tered from the top was not her own, and she had not 
even knocked! 

But the sitting room was empty. How like, and 
how unlike their own! There was the big bowl of 
tulips on a little low table against the wall! Only 
the curtains were golden, not brown. For a minute 
she thought that she must be dreaming, or that 
she was still in her own house, after all. But 


GENTIAN AT THE LOOM 


i35 

as she stood there alone for a minute, the crystal 
light and a sweet stillness over everything made her 
know that she was indeed in the Clear Land. 

But where was the friendly young girl Nan had 
promised would be waiting? The strangeness had 
come back to Gentian’s heart as she stood alone in 
this other room She turned and very softly, 
lonelily went out into the hall and to the door. 

There on the door stone in the crystal, lonely 
twilight sat a girl, about Nan’s age, a girl with a 
clear, quiet face. Twilight was in her eyes and in 
her hair, and she was wrapped about in a twilight 
cloak. Gentian never learned her name, but then 
and always after, she called her the “Twilight Girl.” 

“I was waiting for you,” said the Twilight Girl. 
“Nan was sure you would want to come. I have 
told the Artist, and he has set up the colors and 
left the loom ready.” 

Gentian clapped her hands. “Thank you, oh 
thank you. If I can only make a starry-brightness 
nightrobe like Nan’s! 

“Come then,” the Twilight Girl said, rising and 
taking Gentian by the hand. They went out at the 
little swinging gate, down the street, and turned in 
at the Artist’s drive. Looking up at the mansion, 
Gentian saw how it was very like their own Artist’s 
mansion—except that it was whiter and more shin¬ 
ing—and its towers and arches were lost in the 
sky. 

Up the wide, shallow marble steps they went and 
in at the great front door, which was standing wide 


THE WIND BOY 


136 

open. The Twilight Girl had not bothered to ring 
the bell, nor did she now look around for any one. 
She led Gentian in as though the house were hers, 
and up the stairway. 

At first Gentian felt a little shy about coming into 
the Great Artist’s house so. But then she remem¬ 
bered how Nan had said that children were free to 
go in and out of the Great Artist’s house just as the 
wind was free to blow in and out—and she felt 
strange about it no longer. 

Up and up and up they went, flight after flight of 
wide stairs, and at the top of each flight, through 
winding passages. If Gentian had climbed so many 
stairs down in the world, her legs would surely have 
begun to ache. But here her sandals were silver, 
remember, and it was rather like climbing blue air. 
Indeed, the stairs were blue, and may very well have 
been air. 

Down one long passage, she saw the Great Artist 
himself, pacing back and forth before a row of win¬ 
dows, opening toward the twilight mountains. He 
was very tall and very noble, and dressed in a flowing, 
silvery robe. His head was bent as he paced, or 
turned away toward the windows; and so he did not 
see Gentian and the Twilight Girl, or know that they 
had stopped to gaze at him. 

“He is planning his work,” the Twilight Girl whis¬ 
pered. 

And Gentian remembered how her mother, when 
she was planning a new statue, would pace back and 
forth in the same way. 


GENTIAN AT THE LOOM 


137 

After that they climbed a very steep, narrow flight 
of stairs that ended in a tower room. 

The windows all around were opened outward, and 
when Gentian stood in the room she felt that she 
was standing high up in the sky, where it turns to 
blue. Only now it was the soft blue of evening. 

By one of the windows a little loom was set up, 
and before it stood a stool. 

“Sit here on the stool,” the Twilight Girl said, 
“And I will show you how to begin.” 

So Gentian sat down on the stool before the loom. 
Her feet did not touch the floor,[and the Twilight Girl 
smiled at that. “You are, after all, a very little girl 
to be sitting at this loom,” she said. “But it will 
do no harm to try, and Nan thought you could make 
the starry-brightness—even if your feet wouldn’t 
touch!” 

How grateful Gentian was to Nan for so believing 
in her! And when the Twilight Girl had shown her 
how to handle the colors and how to set to work, she 
said to herself, “Oh, it’s much easier than I thought 
it could be. I know I can do it.” 

“Now,” the Twilight Girl said, giving all the col¬ 
ors into her hands, “try.” 

But Gentian hardly had to try. She could do it 
right from the first. Very swiftly under her hands, 
starry-brightness began to grow. And very soon she 
found that as she worked she could think too. And 
she went on thinking her thoughts while her hands 
flew. 

She thought: “Oh, this is going to be too beautiful 


THE WIND BOY 


138 

to wear at night when no one sees me! I want to 
wear it in the day. When my schoolmates down 
there see me coming, in something so beautiful and 
strange, they will not laugh at me any more. They 
will stop talking about my being so queer, and a 
foreigner. They will wish that they had a starry- 
brightness, and talk only about that/’ 

But as Gentian thought these thoughts the threads 
had grown tangled, and more tangled, until now they 
ended in a snarl, and the starry-brightness was 
losing its starriness under her fingers. 

“What are you doing?” wondered the Twilight 
Girl bending above her. “What are you thinking 
of to let the stars go!” 

Then Gentian told her what she was thinking of. 
The Twilight Girl shook her head. “That was it,” 
she said, her smile a little sad. “Of course you can’t 
weave a starry robe with those thoughts! Starry- 
brightness is not to make you proud before others 
with, it is just for yourself. You can’t make it, 
except just for yourself.” 

“Do you mean that my thoughts spoil it?” asked 
Gentian, surprised. 

“Of course,” answered the Twilight Girl. “You 
must give up wanting anybody to see your robe, and 
then you you may be able to untangle the threads, 
perhaps.” 

So Gentian gave up the thought, and the threads 
almost untangled themselves in her fingers. 

Again the weaving went on, swiftly and smoothly. 
And soon it was going so easily, that Gentian began 


GENTIAN AT THE LOOM 


139 

to think her thoughts again. As it grew in beauty 
and starriness, she thought: “Oh, I want Mother to 
have one. Poor dear Mother, who works so hard and 
has no pretty clothes. How happy such a beautiful 
starry robe would make her! I would rather she 
had it than I!” 

But the threads were getting tangled again, and 
the stars no longer forming. 

“What are you thinking of now?” the Twilight 
Girl spoke softly, bending at Gentian’s shoulder. 
“Something is wrong. See, there are no more 
stars.” 

Gentian told her thoughts. The Twilight Girl’s 
smile was not sad now. But it was grave. “That 
was a nice thought, Gentian,” she said. “But this 
kind of a robe each one must make for himself. No 
one else can do it for him. You must make it yours 
in your thought, or it will not come right.” 

That saddened Gentian for a minute. Where was 
the happiness in doing it just for yourself, if you 
couldn’t do it for someone else too? But after a 
minute her doubt about the happiness of it passed, 
and she tried again. 

Then the stars came quickly and flowingly, and 
the blue, under Gentian’s flying fingers, trembled 
and grew deep into a sky. 

And Gentian thought: “It isn’t every little girl 
of eight who could make a thing so beautiful! I must 
be different somehow from most other children-” 

But hardly had the stars at this thought begun to 
dim, before, without noticing, she stopped. “No, 


THE WIND BOY 


140 

no,” she said out loud. “It was the Artist who set 
up the loom for me, and gave me the colors. I must 
be grateful to the Artist. He could do it for any 
little girl he wanted to!” 

And the Twilight Girl, who had reached a hand to 
stop Gentian, drew it back now, a light of gladness 
in her eyes. 

After that, the starry robe grew and grew. Some¬ 
times, with her thoughts, the threads would go 
wrong again and begin to tangle. But then Gentian 
would rest a minute and get deep-still. After that 
her thoughts would change, and all would be well. 

And soon those times ended altogether, and it 
was smooth work, and swift. 

The starry-brightness had grown almost large 
enough now for a nightrobe for Gentian, and it lay 
on the loom like a piece of the night sky. 

It was then that the Great Artist came up the nar¬ 
row steep stairs into the tower room, and stood be¬ 
hind Gentian, looking down at her busy fingers. But 
Gentian had not heard him, so softly had he come. 
The Twilight Girl stood back, so that he might see 
all. He nodded and then stayed still, watching. 

Soon, all the thread was used, and Gentian turned 
to look up at the Twilight Girl. When she saw the 
Great Artist above her there in his silvery robes, she 
got down from the stool, and stood before him, awed 
and happy. 

“You have done well, little Human,” he said in a 
voice the sound of which Gentian could never after¬ 
ward remember. 


GENTIAN AT THE LOOM 141 

Perhaps Gentian should have thanked him then 
for having set up the loom for her, and letting her 
come up to work on it. But she was too much in 
awe of him to say anything at all! She could only 
smile up into his deep eyes, and be still. Then he 
stooped, and taking the starry-brightness from the 
loom handed it to her. She gazed her thanks out 
of her blue-gentian eyes, as she held the starry- 
brightness against her breast. The Twilight Girl 
took her hand and led her away down the stairs. 

When they got back to the little brown house the 
Twilight Girl said gently: “Run up the stairs now, 
Gentian and back to Nan, who is waiting. It will 
be easy enough for you to find the way through to 
the Earth with that starry robe in your arms. Every 
thing will be easier. ,, 

She bent down and kissed Gentian on her cheek 
(a cool, kind kiss). “The Great Artist was pleased 
with you. You should be very happy, 0 she said. 

“I am, very, very happy!” Gentian answered. 
“And oh, I thank you.” 

The Twilight Girl shook her head, smiling. “You 
did it all—every bit, yourself. Nan will know!” 

So Gentian ran away up the stairs. And when she 
opened the door into the attic room she knew that 
she was back in her own world. For there was dark 
at the window, and Nan was sitting by a lamp, finish¬ 
ing the last stocking. 

Gentian ran to her and threw the starry-brightness, 
in a heap, into her lap. How Nan’s face shone then! 
Yes, I think it outshone even Gentian’s. 


142 


THE WIND BOY 


“Now, I will sew it up for you,” she said, “And 
to-night you shall sleep in it.” 

“Oh, will you? And may I?” Gentian clapped 
her hands. 

So, under the lamp light, Nan sewed up the starry, 
filmy gown, while Gentian knelt on the floor at her 
knee, and watched. When it was done she handed 
it to Gentian and said: “Now run away to bed before 
your mother remembers to send you. That will be 
a fine surprise for her.” 

For once in her life Gentian was only too eager to 
run away to bed. 


CHAPTER XII 


ON PATHS OF NIGHT 

HERE was no need of a lamp in the room to 



undress by, for the stars had risen, and the 


room was silvery with their shining. Gen¬ 
tian’s nightrobe, by star shine, was even lovelier than 
it had been by lamp light. The stars in it had a 
clearer radiance, and the blue quivered in a light all 
its own. The minute that Gentian had slipped out 
of her clothes, and into this loveliness, she felt that 
she had become as light as the gown. “Light as a 
feather!” she thought. But then she knew at once 
that that was not right—she was lighter than any 
feather. For a feather must sometime flutter to the 
earth, but she felt that if she were to leave the ground 
she could stay in the air as long as ever she liked. 

“Oh, how wonderful! How wonderful!” she 
thought. Of course she had climbed the air very 
lately in the Clear Country. But in that crystal 
land, it did not seem like such a marvelous thing to 
do. Here, in her mother’s little brown house, right 
down here in the village where she lived, to climb the 
air would be a different, a stranger thing. 

Gentian got onto the one chair in the bedroom 
to gaze at herself in her mother’s high mirror. The 


THE WIND BOY 


144 

nightrobe looked like a blue cloud fallen about her, 
and the stars in it shone out softly radiant, lighting 
her hair and face. She clapped her hands. 

Then softly she opened the door and softly went 
out to the stairs and down. She stood in the door¬ 
way of the sitting room, looking at her mother and 
Kay, a merry laugh ready to break on her lips, when 
they should see her there in her glimmering night- 
robe. She wanted to watch the wonder grow in 
their eyes. 

But Detra was bent above the statuette, her eyes 
narrowed, while her hands worked cleverly and 
quickly, making the Wind Boy’s clustering curls. 
Her thoughts were all on her work, and she had 
forgotten where she was, even perhaps, who she was. 
As for Kay, he sat beyond her, at the other side of 
the table, to get the lamp light too. His coppery 
head was bent over his book, and his eyes, following 
the pages, never wavered. He was far out at sea 
on a sailing vessel, lost in another world, another 
time. 

Gentian stood watching her mother and her 
brother for many minutes. But they did not look 
up or feel that she was there. She could not get 
Kay’s attention, of course, without disturbing her 
mother. And now that she saw how her mother was 
working, with the intent, narrowed eyes that Gentian 
knew so well, she dared not disturb her. Her heart 
sank a little, for she had longed to show them her 
handiwork. 

But after a little waiting there unnoticed in the 


ON PATHS OF NIGHT 


i 45 

doorway, she softly turned and went back up the 
stairs again to her room. Well, in the morning she 
could show them. She would go to bed now. So 
she turned back the bed clothes, and after kneeling to 
say her bed-time prayer, got in. 

At once she fell asleep. But it was not in the way 
she, or any other little girl, usually falls asleep. The 
minute her head touched the pillow she felt herself 
slipping into sleep as into deep water. Only of 
course sleep did not take her breath away as water 
will when your head goes under. When her head 
went under in this water of sleep, her breath came 
lighter and lighter, easier and easier—until, it was 
not like breathing at all, it was so light. And then 
she forgot everything, she thought of nothing. Of 
course she could never tell about that. That was 
the very deepest sleep a person can know. 

And the next minute she was wide awake! 

She had slept only the briefest while. But because 
it had been so deep a sleep, and so dreamless, that 
while had rested her more that a whole night of just 
ordinary every-night sleep. Now she was suddenly 
wide awake, wider awake than she had ever been in 
her life perhaps, here in her bed with the star light 
pouring in at the window. 

She sat up. Only it was not like sitting up at all; 
for she came up as lightly as the tulips had come up 
after the Wind Boy had run over them. And then 
she noticed that every movement she made was made 
as she thought it—as though her thoughts did the 
moving, and not her body at all. That was delight- 


146 THE WIND BOY 

ful. Thinking it, she got out of bed and went to the 
door. 

“Why, this is the way the clouds move, and the 
wind!” she thought. She went down the stairs as a 
petal floats from the cherry tree. And in a second 
she was standing on the grass, in the lamp light, just 
outside the sitting-room window. 

She crossed her arms on the sill and looked in. Oh, 
if they would only look up and see her now. How 
amazed they would be! The Masker had stood like 
this, looking in, and just at first they might think she 
was the Masker. But right away they would know 
better, and Kay would laugh. 

But what would her mother say to her being out 
alone in the night? Well, Gentian knew very well 
that ordinarily her mother would not like it at all, 
that she would never allow her to do such a thing. 
But in this nightrobe that made her so light, in this 
starry-brightness, everything was different. Her 
mother would surely be wise enough to see that. 
Why, in this starry-brightness, she was part of the 
night, she was the sky itself, and the night wind! 
She belonged out here! 

Detra and Kay worked and read on, and never 
dreamed that Gentian was out there in the night, 
looking in at them. After a little she turned away 
and moved like a cloud across the little grass plot, 
through the hole in the hedge, down the grassy paths 
to the stone steps that led up to the tulip garden. 

In the tulip garden, in the grassy centre where the 
Wind Boy had slept, Gentian sat with her arms 


ON PATHS OF NIGHT 


i47 

wrapped about her knees. How alone she was out 
here, how far from her mother and Kay, back there 
under the lamp light in the little brown house! And 
as she looked toward the little brown house, she 
saw Nan's light wink out in the attic. Was Nan in 
her starry-brightness too, and would she come out 
into the soft night? 

Gentian thought of the Wind Boy. Why had she 
and Kay Saturday morning run away to play with 
the Clear Children and left him behind? Well, she 
would not play with the Clear Children again, unless 
they would let him play too. 

But they must find the Masker. To-morrow night 
at dusk they must do nothing but watch. And when 
they did catch it, and the Wind Boy had torn off 
the mask—how splendid for them all it would be. 
The Wind Boy would be happy again. He would 
look as he had looked that minute when he first 
awoke, here at noon, while Gentian was watching 
him. He would measure for silver sandals then, 
and the Shoeman would be glad. He could go back 
to play with the Clear Children and be at home once 
more in the Clear Land. And Gentian and Kay 
would play with him there, and with the others. 

And then, too, once the Wind Boy was happy, 
Mother could make her statuette look happy too, 
and ready to fly with all of him. For she would see 
him like that, once he was happy, and free of all 
that mask business. She would make him glad of 
his wings, and she would get the light across his brow. 

Well, perhaps the Masker was hiding somewhere 


148 the wind boy 

out here, perhaps in that black shadow over there by 
the white birch at the edge of the garden! 

Gentian looked hard, but could see nothing, so 
velvet-black was the shadow. Yes, the Masker 
might very well be there—but she was not a bit afraid 
at the thought. In her starry-brightness, she could 
not be afraid of anything so foolish and silly as that 
mask! Indeed, she could not remember now how it 
was that such a silly thing had ever frightened her. 

She turned her back on the velvet shadow. But 
her courage was not needed. The Masker was not 
lurking there. If the moonlight and starlight could 
have sifted through the leaves of the white birch Gen¬ 
tian would have seen nothing but tulips, red, yellow, 
purple, white, with their petals closed in the dew. 

Gentian now was looking toward the Artist’s house. 
And she thought of Rosemarie, alone, asleep in her 
high nursery. How jolly it would be if she and Kay 
could only have her for a playmate! But hadn’t the 
Artist half promised it Saturday morning,—here in 
the tulip garden? If when he came back he should 
have forgotten, Gentian decided to remind him. For 
out here in her starry-brightness, she saw how horrid 
it must be for Rosemarie, always alone. All the tulip 
gardens in the world, and automobiles and pretty 
dresses, and famous grandfathers, wouldn’t make up 
to a little girl for being alone. “I will be bold, and 
speak to the Artist about it,” she promised herself. 

Then she looked off over the wood to the far-away 
mountains. They were as black and velvety as the 
shadow under the white birch. 


149 


ON PATHS OF NIGHT 

“Nan came from the mountains,” Gentian re¬ 
membered. “Perhaps she has gone back there now, 
in her starry-brightness, for a visit. I shall go and 
look for her there.” 

Then she rose and went toward the mountains. 
She went right across the tulip beds, not bothering 
about the grassy paths, just as the Wind Boy had 
done. But that was all right, for the tulips did not 
even bend under her feet. 

I cannot tell you about her journey, through air 
and starlight, toward the mountains; for I have 
never run along the paths of night. Even Gentian 
herself never found words to tell it in. But she did 
come to the mountains, moving with her thought, 
and stood at the top of the very tallest one, just above 
the spruce and pine and birch trees, on a ragged ledge 
of gray, moss-covered rock. 

The Village, looking back and down on it, was just 
a few pin points of light. But the sky was close. 
“Oh, I want to know all about the stars,” Gentian 
thought. “Perhaps Nan can tell me. I shall ask 
her to-morrow, or to-night if I find her here. How 
many, many worlds there must be! I want to go to 
all of them and live in all of them one after another 
sometime! 

Above the mountain top just beyond, a light, that 
was not starlight, suddenly caught her glance. It 
was moving toward her along the paths of air. Her 
eyes smiled, for she thought it might be Nan coming 
in her starry-brightness. She stood waiting, watch¬ 
ing. Slowly it came toward her through the star- 


THE WIND BOY 


150 

light and the blue. And when it had come quite 
near she saw that, although it was someone, it was 
not Nan. It was much too tall, and she knew that 
Nan, even in her starry-brightness could never have 
just this clear, steady radiance. 

Gentian, standing there on her stony ledge on the 
mountain top, became stiller than she had ever been in 
her life before. Yes, stiller than deep-still. Her breath 
stopped, her heart beat softly, it was as though she 
hardly lived. She stood straight and still with folded 
hands, and her eyes stayed open only because she 
dared not move her lids to cover them. 

The Being passed very near her mountain-top, 
moving slowly, as to unheard, holy music. He 
passed by. But as he passed, he turned his face, 
and looked down at Gentian, standing still and small 
on the mountain top. 

At his look, she covered her eyes with her hands, 
and sank down on the moss-covered rock. She lay 
curled there, remembering brightness and beauty, 
lost in awe. 

But the face itself she never remembered. For 
k was not a face for a Human child to see. When 
at last she looked up again, the bright Being had 
passed by, and was gone. It had passed behind the 
farthest mountain. 

For a minute, Gentian wanted to follow, to catch 
a glimpse again, if only from afar off. She took a 
step out into the air. 

But something stopped her. Perhaps it was the 
memory of her mother and Kay and her father, out 


ON PATHS OF NIGHT 151 

there, searching for them, somewhere in the world. 
Whatever it was, it turned her about sharply, and 
sent her running fleetly along the paths of night to¬ 
ward the pin points of light that were the village 
and home. 

When she reached the tulip garden and floated 
down onto the grassy centre she saw that the little 
brown house was dark. Mother must have finished 
with the Wind Boy, and Kay with his book, and both 
have gone to bed. But where would Mother think 
Gentian had vanished to, when she saw her bed 
empty? Gentian had not thought of Mother’s being 
frightened by her adventure. She ran up the air, 
and across to her mother’s open window. When 
she stood in the still, shadowy room, she was glad to 
be there. 

How it had happened that Detra when she came 
to bed had failed to notice that Gentian was not 
there in her own little cot I cannot tell you. But 
she had not noticed, surely, or she would not be 
sleeping peacefully now. Gentian listened to her 
even, gentle breathing. 

“I can never sleep in this starry-brightness,” she 
thought, as she stood glimmering in the room. “It 
is too wonderful for just a little girl.” 

So quietly, not to disturb her sleeping mother, she 
slipped it off, and feeling for her plain, little cotton 
nightgown on its peg in the dark closet, she put it on 
instead. Then, still moving very softly, she folded 
up the starry-brightness and put it away in the lowest 
empty drawer of her chest. When she closed the 


152 THE WIND BOY 

drawer, she felt that she was closing a door into the 
sky. 

But it was so still in the house, and she was so 
strange and lonely, she could not get into her own 
bed now, and go to sleep. The memory of the bright¬ 
ness and beauty of that face that had turned toward 
her on the mountain top, and the way she had almost 
gone after it beyond the mountains, was too keen. 

Softly, uncertainly, she stole across and stood be¬ 
side her mother’s bed in the farthest shadow in the 
room. She bent and touched her mother’s cheek 
with her own. 

“Who is that?” Detra asked in a half-asleep voice. 
“Who?” 

“It’s Gentian,” Gentian whispered, and crept in 
beside her. 

Detra turned and folded an arm about her little 
girl. 

“Why, you are cold!” she whispered, “Snuggle 
close.” 

“Oh, may I stay and sleep here?” 

“Yes, but why? I thought you were so fast 
asleep!” 

“No, I was out in the night. It was so big! And 
then came the Angel. I wanted you!” 

Detra smiled sleepily to herself in the dark. “What 
strange dreams you have,” she murmured. Then 
she lay thinking about her little girl and wondering 
about her for a long time. 

But Gentian had fallen asleep almost at once, 
folded happily in her mother’s arms. 


CHAPTER XIII 


KAY AND THE MASKER 

HE next afternoon Kay and Gentian took 



their home work out under the cherry tree. 


J- There was more than usual of it to-day, and 
they wanted to get it all out of the way before twilight. 
For at twilight, they had promised each other to lie 
in wait for the Masker; and they hoped that the Wind 
Boy would come to join them. Even as they studied 
they kept glancing up, half expecting to see him 
standing in the garden waiting for them; and several 
times Gentian was sure she spied a bit of his purple 
wings, when the spring wind moved overhead in the 
cherry tree. 

“You really must study, Gentian,” Kay at last 
cried, a little impatiently. “If you keep looking 
up there for him all the time, and thinking about 
him, you’ll never get done this afternoon. Then 
Mother’ll keep us in to-night.” 

Gentian sighed. “All right,” she said, “I’ll try.” 
And she bent over her lesson book determinedly. 

Just then the Wind Boy did come running down 
from the Clear Land and into the boughs of the cherry 
tree. But he made no more sound than the spring 
wind had already made there, so the children did 


THE WIND BOY 


154 

not let themselves look up. He knelt in a forked 
branch watching them for some time, but they did 



not lift their eyes from their books. He shook the 
boughs then, making the air sweet with cherry- 
blossom smell. Still they would not look. 





KAY AND THE MASKER 


i55 

He spread his purple wings, and drifted to the 
grass, and standing directly before them, looked 
down, wistfully, at the coppery tops of their bent 
heads. He had come to play with them. 

But if you are to play with a Wind Boy you 
must first see him; and he has no way of getting 
your attention unless you are quite ready to give 
it. So he waited now in vain for his Human play¬ 
mates. 

At last, too proud to stay longer unwanted, he 
turned away and flew slowly over the hedge and back 
to the Artist’s tulip garden. There he stretched 
himself out in the grassy centre where the sun was 
warmest, and stayed half asleep waiting for twilight 
and time to watch for the Masker. 

But back under the cherry tree, it was Gentian who 
was now rebuking Kay. “Really Kay, unless you 
stop staring up at that nursery window you’ll never 
get done, and Mother won’t let us out in the twilight! 
Please!” 

You see, Rosemarie had come to her high nursery 
window, and stood looking down at the brother and 
sister. She was hoping that Kay would soon put 
by his books, and climb. For if she herself might 
not climb up the brown limbs of that old cherry 
tree among the budding blossoms, the next best 
thing was to watch somebody else doing it. But 
to-day, alas, he did not climb. And Rosemarie, as 
the Wind Boy, turned away after a while, lonely 
and disappointed. 

After that, Kay and Gentian got on famously with 


156 THE WIND BOY 

the work they had set themselves, and there was only 
silence, and now and then the turning of a pagein 
the tiny garden. 

. . . But after all, the Wind Boy was not pa¬ 

tient enough to wait for twilight, to return to the 
little brown house and his playmates. He found 
them, through with an early supper, tossing a ball 
before the door. They were throwing it back and 
forth to each other, calling and laughing. The Wind 
Boy heard their happy voices before he came to the 
hedge. 

Gentian was the first to see him, and clapped her 
hands. “So you’ve come,” she cried. “WeVe been 
looking and looking for you. But it’s not time to 
watch for the Masker yet. What shall we play till 
twilight ? ” 

She knew very well, of course, that the Wind Boy 
would not be able to catch or throw their ball; for 
she remembered that he could not even open the 
secret door, that needed only a touch. In the Clear 
Land, you must know, the Wind Boy could open 
doors well enough and play ball too. It was only 
down here that he had no touch for things. 

“Let’s play Hide-and-Seek,” he suggested. “I’ll 
blind first.” 

“Oh let’s,” both children agreed. 

So the Wind Boy faced the cherry tree, and cross¬ 
ing his arms on the old brown trunk, closed his eyes 
against them. Away Gentian ran, almost before he 
had begun to count,—around the house, and out 
across the meadow at the back. There, in a hollow, 


KAY AND THE MASKER 


157 

behind some huckleberry bushes she crouched to 
hide. 

But Kay had not gone so far. He wanted to get 
his goal and fool the Wind Boy, who he thought must 
have heard Gentian running away around the house 
and would go in that direction, leaving him safe to 
slip in and get “free.” 

So, very softly, moving on his toes, he got to the 
lilac hedge, and worked his way in among the bushes. 
Once there, safely hidden, he stood erect. 

The Wind Boy did just as Kay had expected. 
When he had finished counting, he turned about, and 
looked all around, carefully. For an instant he 
looked straight at Kay’s hiding place, and Kay felt 
that their eyes met. But they could not have for the 
Wind Boy never saw him there at all, peering out 
through the green leaves. Once again he turned on 
his heels, looking carefully every way. Then he 
ran away in the direction he had heard Gentian’s 
feet taking. 

Now Kay would have jumped from his hiding 
place, and got his goal with ease, if he had not heard 
a sound behind him. He turned to see what it was, 
and stayed as though frozen. For there, standing 
close against a tree trunk on the Artist’s lawn, and 
looking back around it, as though in fear of some 
one’s seeing it from the windows of the great house, 
was the Masker! 

It had come early to-night. Kay wanted to shout 
for the Wind Boy and Gentian. But that would do 
no good, he knew, for the Masker would only escape 


THE WIND BOY 


158 

again. Then he remembered the Policeman who 
was to keep special watch every evening. He looked 
out carefully toward the street. Yes, there he was, 
just arrived for duty, and pacing back and forth 
within easy call. But Kay did not call. 

No, he suddenly decided to catch the Masker for 
himself, and have all the fun of waving the mask in 
the faces of the Wind Boy and Gentian, when they 
should come back to the goal. So he simply stayed 
perfectly still, waiting in his leafy secrecy. 

And now that he had decided on a brave thing, 
the Masker suddenly became not so terrifying to him. 
It was a figure only about his own height, covered 
from neck to heels in a blue silk cape. The cape had 
a peaked hood, and this was pulled over the Masker’s 
head. The mask itself was the only frightening 
thing; and since he knew that it was only a mask, why 
mind it? 

Anyway, seen close like this, in late afternoon light, 
it was almost more comical than horrible. The long 
green eyes, the big brown ears, the pointed nose, 
and the turned-down mouth came very near to mak¬ 
ing him laugh, and so give away his hiding place. 
But he had no intention of doing that. He waited, 
hoping with all his heart that the Policeman would 
not look over the hedge, and see the Masker too. 

After a minute the Masker left the concealment of 
the tree and ran, very swiftly, toward the hole in the 
hedge. To reach the hole, it had to pass Kay. He 
leapt out and caught at the flying cape. With a 
startled, but stifled scream, the Masker wrenched 


KAY AND THE MASKER 


i 59 

the cape from his grasp and fled back across the grass, 
right toward the Artist's house. This time it did 
not stop to hide behind the trees, for Kay was after 
it. 

Right at once he realized that the Masker was 
making for the secret door behind the syringa bush. 
Well, that should not happen again—not if he could 
help it! 

He ran faster than he had known he could run, 
taking a short cut right across a bed of jonquils. That 
headed the Masker off before it could get near the 
syringa bush. It swerved off, and sped away in the 
direction of the tulip garden. 

Down long grassy paths it ran, the blue cape 
streaming behind like a streak of cloud, for Kay had 
pulled it loose from one shoulder. But Kay was 
gaining. 

And then the Masker stopped bothering about the 
paths, and dashed through flower beds, over ferns, 
over fresh-planted places, and at last reached the 
foot of the stone steps leading up to the tulip garden. 

And Kay followed through everything. To what 
his mother or the Artist would say to all this ruin of 
their feet he gave not a thought at that time. He 
was after the Masker, and he meant to catch it. He 
could only think of that. 

Just at the top of the steps the Masker tripped over 
its cape and fell, sprawling. Kay, who was close 
behind, and had not time to stop, tripped over the 
Masker and fell sprawling, too. 

Up got the Masker to its knees to run again, but 


i6o 


THE WIND BOY 


Kay reached out a hand and clutched the cape. At 
that the Masker had to stand still, though tugging, 
for the cape was fastened securely to a strap about 
the Masker’s waist. 

\ “There!” cried Kay, springing up. “Now I’ve 
got you! You horrid thing that scares children and 

keeps the Wind 
Boy away from 
his comrades. 
I’m not afraid of 



you 


And 


he 

reached for the 
mask to tear it 
off. But the 
Masker itself 
pulled down the 
mask before Kay 
could. And Kay 
gave up his hold 
on the cape and 
fell back a step in 
utter dismay. 

“ There," cried Kay, “Now I’ve F ° r the _ m * sk j 
got you!" coming off, had 

brought the 

peaked hood with it. And there were the dancing 
dark curls and the merry brown eyes, and the rosy 
cheeks of—Rosemarie! 


And she was laughing. Indeed she was laughing 
so hard that her knees gave out and she sank to the 
ground, shaking with mirth. 







KAY AND THE MASKER 


161 


“Oh, I wouldn’t have tripped if I hadn’t got to 
laughing,” she said, when she could stop a little. 
“Didn’t I fool you! Oh, wasn’t it fun! You never 
guessed it was I, all the time! But how you can run! ” 

But Kay had nothing to say. He could only stare 
and stare. He had never been so near to Rosemarie 
before, or dreamed anybody could be so pretty. 

At last he found his voice, though, and asked, 
“Was it always you—all the time?” He could 
hardly believe it. 

“Yes, of course. Didn’t you guess?” 

“But how did you come by the mask at all? 

“Oh, one day when I was wondering what I should 
do, alone, and wanting, oh, so, to play with you and 
your sister—but old Prinie—that’s my governess— 
said I never could—I just found it. It was blowing 
about the hedge. Old Prinie’s nose was buried in a 
book and she never saw! So I hid it under my 
cape. 

“I tried it on that night, when she left me alone 
to do my lessons. It was so funny! I laughed and 
laughed at myself in the mirror on my door. Then 
I got this blue cape out of Prinie’s closet. It’s her 
best Sunday cape, you must know! But I had to 
be covered up, didn’t I! If my dress showed every¬ 
body would guess. There is a secret door -” 

“Yes, behind the syringa,” interrupted Kay. 

Rosemarie looked at him, surprised. “Why, 
that’s my secret door! What do you know about it ?” 

“I’ll tell you afterwards. Only go on with your 
story.” 


162 


THE WIND BOY 


“I found it for myself one day. I was playing 
Indians, you see. Since I was playing alone, I had 
to be all the Indians and the white settlers too. Well, 
the Indian Chief was just about to scalp a white man 
—only the white man tumbled back into some bushes, 
and then ran away and got safe. When I tumbled 
back among the bushes—it was the syringa bush, 
you know—why, I tumbled right into that door. 
And so I found out about it. 

“I used it for all my play after that. It fitted into 
so many stories. It is such fun!” 

“Yes, it must be. I wish we had a secret door!” 

“It’s awfully exciting. If only Prinie would let 
us play together we could find lots of things to do 
with it.” 

“I should say so! But do you use it when you go 
out and in with the mask?” 

“Yes. And then I run from tree to tree, just like 
the Indians, you know. Nobody has ever seen me 
from the windows. Prinie wouldn’t be looking out 
anyway, not then, for she’s having supper with the 
housekeeper. They’re having it early to-night be¬ 
cause Grandfather’s coming home, and they must 
get me dressed for him.” 

“But weren’t you afraid of the Policeman?” 

“No. Why should I be afraid of the Policeman?” 

“Didn’t you know he is on the watch for you, to 
catch you?” 

“No. Why?” 

“Haven’t you heard how frightened everybody is 
of the mask? Even some of the grown-ups! Your 


KAY AND THE MASKER 163 

grandfather has told the Policeman to catch you. 
Not you, of course—the Masker.” 

“No. I didn’t know all that. I wouldn’t hear 
any of it, of course. They would think I might be 
frightened of the Masker myself, I suppose!” 

Rosemarie burst into laughter again at the quaint 
thought. 

“Oh, it would have been all the more fun if I had 
known that!” 

“You wouldn’t have been afraid of the Policeman, 
if you had known?” Kay asked, wondering at her. 

“Yes, perhaps, a little. But I would have gone 
out just the same. Oh, Kay, you must never tell on 
me. It will be so exciting now!” 

“ But I want the mask, Rosemarie. You see-” 

And then Kay told her all about the Wind Boy. She 
listened, enchanted. But when he was done, she 
asked, “ Aren’t you making it all up out of your 
head ?” 

“No, no. It is as true as true. He is very un¬ 
happy. But once he gets the mask back and has 
torn it up everything will come right with him again.” 

“Well, of course you must take it to him then. He 
must be clever, the Wind Boy, to have made it so 
frightening. Only now, Kay, when I give it to you, 
how am I ever to get into your garden again, and 
look in at your window? If I couldn’t play with you, 
it’s been fun to frighten you and have you chase me. 
Why, last night, when you were after me, and I got 
in at my secret door—it was the most fun I have ever 
had in all my whole life!” 



THE WIND BOY 


164 

“Oh, Rosemarie, why don’t you ask your grand¬ 
father. He might-” 

Rosemarie shook her head. “No, he mightn’t. 
Miss Prine is to say about everything. When she 
says ‘No’ I must never, never ask him.” 

“But I should think-” 

Kay had not time to say what he should think, 
though, for suddenly a voice came calling, “Rose¬ 
marie, RoseMARIE! Where are you?” 

The voice sounded vexed, and frightened at the 
same time. For the Artist had returned a little 
earlier than they had expected, and Rosemarie was 
not to be found. Miss Prine and Polly had searched 
the whole house, and now they were calling in the 
grounds. It was Miss Prine’s voice the children were 
hearing. She had come, in her hunting, to the foot 
of the stone steps. 

“Oh, there she is!” whispered Rosemarie. “Oh 
bother! Stay here and hide, Kay. Here, here is 
the mask. Give it to the Wind Boy. Won’t she 
just be furious about the cape, though! I don’t 
care! It’s been worth it playing with you!” 

Then she stood up and ran down the steps. Kay 
stayed still where she had left him, the mask at his 
back. 

“Oh, there you are!” he heard Miss Prine’s exas¬ 
perated voice exclaiming. “In my best cape! What 
will you dare next! Naughty, naughty, mischievous 
girl!” 

For a long way, as they went down the grassy 
path, Kay heard Miss Prine’s quick, scolding words. 


KAY AND THE MASKER 165 

But for some time after the voice had faded out, 
Kay stayed, thinking. He thought, “Rosemarie’s 
not really naughty! It’s just that she has nothing 
else to do, but naughtiness. Nobody to play with. 
If she could play with Gentian and me, she wouldn’t 
want to take Miss Prine’s best cape, and not get 
her lessons, and frighten little children. We’d find 
plenty to do without that. How jolly it might be! 
We’d play Indians and shipwreck and everything. 
Gentian just wants to play fairy stories all the time. 
But Rosemarie’s different. And there’s the secret 
door—and all the gardens!” 

He sat on, his eyes bright, thinking up the things 
they might do with Rosemarie. Why, there would 
be no end to them! 

But after some time he remembered the Wind Boy 
and Gentian who must have come back long ago to 
the goal, and now were wondering where he was, and 
perhaps hunting him. 

He picked up the mask and ran away down the 
steps. 


CHAPTER XIV 


NAN AND THE POLICEMAN 
' ~D as he ran he noticed the trodden-down 



flower beds, the broken ferns, the footmarks 


-*--**> in newly planted earth! He had done that, 
chasing Rosemarie. She had done it too, of course. 
But then if he hadn’t chased her she would never 
have gone that way! What would the Artist say 
when he saw the ruin? What would Detra say when 
she knew? Kay looked very rueful indeed. But he 
had been chasing the Masker. They couldn’t blame 
him too much. The Masker, though, had been 
Rosemarie. They could blame her. He was not 
running now, but walking very slowly, thinking. 

“I’ll not tell who the Masker was,” he said to him¬ 
self. “They ought just to be glad enough that I’ve 
got the mask, and it can’t frighten them any more. 
Poor Rosemarie’s not to be scolded, not because of 
me!” 

Then he started to run again, for now he could 
hardly wait to wave the mask in the faces of Gentian 
and the Wind Boy. 

But I must tell you about the Wind Boy and 
Gentian. The Wind Boy had found her quickly 
enough, and got her goal too, for her feet, even in 


NAN AND THE POLICEMAN 167 

their sandals, were no match for his strong wings. 
Together, then, they had hunted for Kay. Of course, 
they could not find him; for it never entered their 
heads that he might have disobeyed Detra, and 
gone into the Artist’s grounds. 

For a while the Policeman, who had been there 
for some time now, standing near the little swinging 
gate, kept his silence and watched Gentian searching. 
Of course he did not see her comrade, the Wind Boy. 
The Policeman was smiling behind his moustache, 
for he thought that at last he was on the trace of 
the Masker. 

After a time, he called, “What are you looking for, 
little girl?” 

“Why, we’re playing Hide-and-Seek, and Kay has 
hidden himself so well we can’t find him,” Gentian 
stopped her search to answer very politely—for the 
children were always a little in awe of this policeman 
in his important-looking uniform, with all its brass 
buttons. “But if you saw him,” she added quickly, 
“You mustn’t tell. For that wouldn’t be fair.” 

“That’s so, little girl! Well, I surely did see him, 
and I’m standing here watching for him to come 
back, I am. If he doesn’t appear soon, I’ll join in 
your game myself, and go look. He’s up to some¬ 
thing, take my word.” 

The Policeman, you must know, had watched 
Kay steal on his tiptoes to the hedge, crawl in, and 
disappear. The hedge was so high that he had not 
seen the Masker slipping from tree to tree on the 
Artist’s lawn, nor Kay finally chasing it. But while 


THE WIND BOY 


168 

he had waited for Kay to reappear, he had been 
thinking. And out of his thinking had come the 
conviction that Kay had gone to some hiding-place 
for the mask, and at twilight would sneak back 
through the hole in the hedge wearing it. For in 
spite of Nan he could not give up the feeling he had 
had for days, that this little foreign boy was all the 
time the Masker! 

“Oh dear!” Gentian said so softly to the Wind 
Boy that the Policeman could not possibly hear. 
“If he’s going to stand there like that there’s no 
fun playing any longer!” 

“Well, anyway,” the Wind Boy said, looking 
about, “It’s twilight now, and time for the Masker.” 

It was true. Twilight had come so stealthily they 
had not noticed. 

“Let’s sit here by the hole, not saying anything, 
to watch.” 

Gentian nodded. 

So they sat down on the grass, close up against the 
hedge, their arms wrapped about their knees, to wait 
and watch in the twilight. Gentian’s eyes were dark 
with excitement. She felt sure that they would 
catch the Masker this time. When it should come 
creeping through the hole, Gentian would hold it, 
while the Wind Boy tore off its mask. Oh, if Kay 
were only here to help and to have the fun too! Why 
didn’t he come out from his hiding-place now, since 
he must see that it was twilight? 

But the Policeman had swung open the gate, and 
was coming in. Oh dear! What did he want now! 


NAN AND THE POLICEMAN 169 

Why couldn’t he keep away till this was over! They 
wanted to do it all themselves. Gentian was not 
really afraid of him to-night for since Mother and 
Nan were just there in the house, he could do her 
no harm, of course. But he did spoil the fun! 

He came right across the grass to Gentian and the 
Wind Boy. “You’ve chosen a good place to watch,” 
he said in a whispering secret voice. “Guess I’ll 
join you.” 

Gentian did not answer. She forgot politeness and 
stared straight ahead. Well, of course if the Police¬ 
man stayed here, and the Masker did come through 
the hedge, he would be the one to catch it. He was 
so big and strong and his arms were so long! Perhaps 
he’d put the mask away in his pocket when he got 
it, and then the Wind Boy couldn’t tear it up at all, 
and would be as badly off as ever!” 

The Wind Boy had the same thoughts. He looked 
at Gentian with troubled, clouded eyes. “Oh, 
bother!” he said. “Why couldn’t he leave it to 
us?” 

Gentian looked up at the Policeman. “Perhaps 
it won’t come this twilight,” she suggested. 

“ Perhaps it will, though,” the Policeman answered, 
looking down at her suspiciously. “Anyhow, here I 
sit for a while to see.” 

- And down he did sit between Gentian and the 
Wind Boy! If the Wind Boy had not moved quickly 
the Policeman would have sat on him, for to the 
Policeman, the Wind Boy was nothing at all! 

At that minute they heard running feet coming 


THE WIND BOY 


170 

toward the hedge from the other side. The three 
watchers straightened up and hearkened, tense. 

And then Kay came bounding through the hole, 
swinging the mask high above his head, his face 
shining. 

The Policeman sprang and grabbed him by the 
shoulder. 

“There now! I felt it all along! You sly scamp!” 

Kay was taken by surprise, of course, but he was 
not frightened—only startled. When he saw Gen¬ 
tian and the Wind Boy, he smiled as though a police¬ 
man having him by the shoulder and frowning like 
a thundercloud was nothing—he was so full of his 
great news. 

“Oh, I caught the Masker,” he cried to them. 
“And here’s the mask. For you, Wind Boy.” 

He raised his arm, the arm that was free of the 
Policeman’s clutch, to toss the mask to the Wind 
Boy. 

But the Policeman seized it. “No you don’t,” 
he said. “That there mask goes with me. It’s my 
proof that I caught the Masker.” 

He held it fast in his big, red hand. 

“You caught the Masker!” Kay cried in con¬ 
sternation. “Why, I caught it myself! How can 
you say you did ?” 

“Well, I can say it well enough. I always guessed 
that you were it, but now I KNOW. I’ve caught 
you red-handed, with the mask itself!” 

“No, no!” Kay cried. “I chased the Masker and 
caught her—I mean it. I took the mask and came 


NAN AND THE POLICEMAN 


171 

running with it to the Wind Boy. It’s really his, 
you know, since he made it.” 

The Policeman paid no attention to the mention 
of the Wind Boy. 

“Well, son,” he asked, “Who was the Masker then, 
if ’twasn’t yourself? Out with it?” 

But Kay's sure smile had frozen and died. He 
answered only with silence. 

At his silence, Gentian and the Wind Boy were 
amazed. But the Policeman grinned. 

“Oh do tell quickly, Kay,” Gentian pleaded. “He 
mustn’t think you re the Masker.” 

But Kay stared straight before him. “I’m not 
going to tell,” he said quietly. “It ought to be 
enough that I’ve got the mask and it won’t frighten 
children ever again.” 

“So it was you then, sure enough,” the Policeman 
said, delighted with his own cleverness. “And you 
had everyone but me well fooled, you did,—even 
that Nan there, who’s clever enough other ways, I’ll 
wager. You were the Masker all along, and I’ll say 
you were smart about it too. It took brains to 
catch you at it, it did.” 

“Oh Kay,” Gentian cried. “How can you let 
him go on saying that?” 

But Nan, from a window in the little brown house, 
had seen the Policeman out there in the twilight, 
the mask swinging in one hand, the other holding 
fast Kay’s shoulder. She came running. 

“What is it?” she asked the Policeman. “You’ve 
got the mask! But why are you holding Kay so?” 


THE WIND BOY 


172 

“I’m holding him so because he’s a mischievous 
scamp, and ’twas him was the Masker all this time! 
Now I’m going to march him in to his mother, while 
we inform her. Then to the Artist who has promised 
a reward for the catching of him. He’s just come 
home. Between the two, what’s to be done with 
the boy will be decided.” 

But Nan laughed. And the children looked at 
her in grieved surprise. How could she laugh, and 
they in such trouble! 

She said, “I know very well, Mr. Policeman, that 
the Masker was never Kay. Why, just last evening, 
when Kay and Gentian were sitting still at the supper 
table, the Masker looked in at the window! Now 
he couldn’t be in two places at once, could he—at the 
table and at the window?” 

“And, Nan,” Kay cried, glad of this sensible ally. 
“ It was I myself who chased the Masker to-night, and 
got the mask away from her—IT. I was just bring¬ 
ing it to the Wind Boy, when the Policeman grabbed 
me.” 

“That’s all very fine sounding,” said the Police¬ 
man, “but he can’t tell us who the Masker was, or 
what!” 

“It’s not that I can’t. I won’t.” 

“Let me see the horrid thing?” Nan commanded— 
but gently, holding out her hand for it. 

“Be careful, then,” the Policeman cautioned her. 
“Nothing must happen to it till the Artist has had a 
look. He never would believe it was as horrible as I 
said. He always laughed at me. 


NAN AND THE POLICEMAN 173 

Nan held the Mask up and looked it square in the 
green eyes. 

“You are rather horrid, but you are funny, too!” 
She spoke to it—as thought it were alive and could 
hear. “It was only mischief that made you first, 
but then you grew into something worse. You 
frightened little children. You made one little boy 
sick. That was wicked of you. So now you must 
be torn to bits and thrown away on the wind, and 
never, never, never frighten children again.” 

But the Policeman was startled by Nan’s last 
words. He stepped quickly toward her to take back 
the mask. But Nan was too quick for him. She 
whirled about and tossed it to the Wind Boy. 

He caught it with glad eagerness and rushed away, 
tearing it to little bits as he went. The brown and 
green leaves and twigs that made it were scattered 
all about on the grass. Gentian and Kay saw the 
Wind Boy lift his wings then and fly away, up into 
the twilight air. For a minute there was the other 
village hanging above their own,—other houses, other 
gardens, and away off* the other woods and other 
mountains, all clear in crystal twilight. 

But then the Policeman’s voice called them back, 
and they forgot the Clear Land. 

“Now you’ve done it!” he cried to Nan. “You 
might have seen how easy broke it was! What did 
you mean by tossing it up like that?” 

For all that the Policeman had seen—alas, for 
him,—was Nan throwing the mask into the air, and 
then it being whirled about in a sudden burst of 


THE WIND BOY 


174 

spring wind, and scattered in tiny pieces over the 
grass. 

But Nan did not look a bit sorry. And neither did 
she seem afraid of the Policeman. 

No. She went directly to him and lightly lifted 
his hand from Kay’s shoulder. “ He’ll not run away 
from you,” she said. “ Don’t you see, Mr. Police¬ 
man, that he’s only a little boy and has no place to 
run to, except his mother back there in the house?” 

“Well, I suppose you’re right. He couldn’t escape 
us, now he’s found out. We’d best march him in 
to his mother. Come along, young man.” 

But Nan stood in front of him. “Please don’t 
tell his mother to-night,” she said. “She has only 
just this minute started to work on a little statue 
she is making. Evening is her only time for this 
work she loves best, for all day she has to be at the 
factory. If you go in and disturb her now, she may 
not be able to get back to work to-night at all. 
Artists are like that.” 

The Policeman stared. “So? But she’s got to 
know. Something’s got to be done to him. When 
may I tell her?” 

“To-morrow evening when she comes from the 
factory. Then you may tell her. Until then I 
promise you Kay will not run away.” 

“All right. I hadn’t the mind to disturb her the 
other night either. Remember? When you live in 
a town with a great Artist,” he nodded his head to¬ 
ward the Artist’s mansion, over the hedge, “you got 
to know something about artists, and the way they 



Nan tossed the mask to the Wind Boy . 


i75 





















NAN AND THE POLICEMAN 


177 

work! But I’ll go along to him now. He does his 
work mornings.” 

“Yes, do go to the Artist. I’m sure he won’t 
mind your not having the mask to show. You can 
say it was my fault, its getting broken.” 

But the Policeman did not move to go for a minute. 
He was looking into Nan’s eyes again. Or rather, 
he was looking through them to the purple moun¬ 
tains, with calm stars just risen in the sky above. 
His face grew kind in the twilight. 

“No, I’d not tell on you, not for worlds,” he said. 
“You can rest easy about that.” 

Then he went. 

Nan turned to Kay. “Oh, I didn’t! I didn’t!” he 
assured her. “I never was the Masker!” 

“Don’t I know it?” Nan hushed him, putting an 
arm across his shoulder. 

“But you told him to tell Mother to-morrow!” 

“Why, Kay,” Gentian said, “Mother will believe 
you too. She won’t mind if you say it was never 
you.” 

Kay straightened. “Of course she won’t punish 
me when I say it wasn’t I. It isn’t that that bothers 
me,—even if she might. It’s how sad she will feel. 
She wants people to like us so. And now they’ll all 
think us queerer than ever, not only queer, naughty! 
Perhaps I’ll be expelled from school. And Mother 
will be miserable. And it will all be my fault!” 

“Well, anyway, let’s be glad that she’s not to be 
troubled to-night,” Nan said. “For, now that the 
Wind Boy is happy again, and back with his com- 


THE WIND BOY 


178 

rades, this is her chance to get the statuette right. 
He will look glad of his wings to-morrow, and have 
clear eyes. ,, 

“Oh, do you think the Wind Boy will come back 
to-night so that she can see how happy he is?” 

“Hardly so soon, when he has just got his com¬ 
rades back. But your mother may follow him to 
the Clear Land. That is where she does her true 
work, you know, even if she does forget about it when 
you ask her.” 

With an arm across each child’s shoulder Nan 
turned to the house. 

“Let’s steal in very softly and up to my room,” 
she whispered, when they had come to the door. 
“Your mother must not be called back from the 
Clear Land until she has got the Wind Boy just as 
he is now into her plastilina. That would spoil 
everything.” 

But as they slipped past the sitting room’s open 
door, they looked in at Detra. The statuette was 
before her on the table, and her fingers were working 
quickly and surely on the brow. Her eyes looked 
straight at Kay, but without seeing. For this was 
not the real Detra here, their own mother. She was 
off in the Clear Land watching the Wind Boy at play 
with his comrades. This that the children saw was 
only her mechanical self,—you know, the self that 
walks and runs and leads you about if you ever 
chance to walk in your sleep. That self, that part 
of you, never can go up into the Clear Land. 

The children’s feet made no noise on the stairs, so 



Their mother was working. 


179 





























































































NAN AND THE POLICEMAN 181 

quietly they crept up. But when Nan’s door was 
closed behind them, then they could speak. But 
they did so softly, that no sound of it might drift 
down from the window and into the room where 
Detra was working on the Wind Boy. 

Nan told them stories. Gentian sat at her feet 
leaning against her knee, but Kay sprawled on the 
floor, his chin in his hands, his eyes looking out into 
the darkening night. And though Nan’s stories were 
wonderful and magical, still Kay heard little of them 
that night; for he was promising himself over and 
over, “I won’t tell on Rosemarie. No, no matter 
what they do. I’ll not tell even Mother. A good 
thing the Policeman didn’t guess! I’m glad, glad he 
didn’t guess!” 

But, even so, he dreaded to-morrow. 


CHAPTER XV 


ROSEMARIE IS WAKED BY THE LITTLE SILVER BELL 

FOR Rosemarie, Miss Prine scolded her all 



the way back to the house. She scolded 


her for leaving her lessons to run out to play. 
She scolded her for going out into the twilight alone 
and without permission. She scolded her for “steal¬ 
ing” and abusing Miss Prine’s own best cape. But 
most of all she scolded her for not being sorry. For 
Rosemarie refused to be sorry. She did not drop 
her head, and whenever Miss Prine turned to look 
down into her face, she saw a happiness there that 
there was no accounting for,—and was indeed offen¬ 
sive under the circumstances. 

Of course the thing that was keeping Rosemarie 
happy, in spite of the disgrace that was her due, was 
the memory of Kay. Why, for half an hour or so 
she had had a real playmate! When he chased her 
in the mask—that had been a sort of a game of tag, 
hadn’t it? Rosemarie had seen other children play¬ 
ing tag before, but she had never played it—for you 
can’t play tag alone! And then they had talked in 
the tulip garden, and he had told her all that fairy- 
storyish thing about the Wind Boy! Only it wasn’t 
a fairy-story at all. He had said it was true, and 
182 


THE LITTLE SILVER BELL 183 

he looked true enough when he said it all. She had 
only met fairies in books! But those two, Kay and 
Gentian, knew them in real life and had them for 
friends. When they had each other, was it fair that 
they should have the fairies too? 

Miss Prine’s voice was getting lower and lower in 
its scolding tones the nearer they came to the house, 
for she did not mean the Artist to know how very 
naughty Rosemarie had been. He might think it 
was in some way her fault,—that she had not kept 
careful watch enough. And that would be unjust; 
for no one could be more watchful than Miss Prine. 
It was just that she had been eating her supper with 
the housekeeper, and thought Rosemarie would be 
safe with her lesson books. 

So very quietly now, she hurried Rosemarie up 
the back stairs to her high nursery. There she 
brushed and brushed her dark, dancing curls with 
quick firm strokes until they stopped dancing and 
shone instead. Then, very hurriedly, she slipped 
her into a fresh frock, a white frock with pink rose¬ 
buds and a wide white muslin sash. This should 
have been Polly’s work, but Polly was still hunting 
somewhere in the grounds. There had not been time 
to tell her that Rosemarie was found. 

Now Rosemarie stood prim and sweet and clean, 
ready to be seen by her grandfather. And they 
were only just in time, for there was his knock at 
the door. He had unexpectedly come up to the 
nursery instead of waiting for her to be brought down. 

Rosemarie was glad to see her grandfather, for 


THE WIND BOY 


184 

she loved him with her whole heart. At least it 
had been her whole heart until Kay and Gentian had 
moved in next door, and from a distance she had 
begun loving them too. But she was a little in awe 
of him, for all her love. And then Miss Prine al¬ 
ways appeared a little afraid of him. That had had 
its effect on Rosemarie from her babyhood! 

His first words to-night amazed her. “Well, have 
you been having a good time with that little girl 
and boy next door? Better than playing always 
alone, eh?” 

But Miss Prine interrupted quickly and nervously, 
before Rosemarie could answer. 

“Oh, we haven’t begun that yet,” she said. “You 
did not say there was any hurry about it in your 
telegram. And right on top of your telegram came 
the news from the Policeman that both those foreign 
children were mischievous beyond the ordinary, and 
that he suspected the boy of being the Masker. 
So-” 

But at the word “Masker” the Artist had sternly 
motioned Miss Prine silent. 

“We will not discuss this before Rosemarie, if you 
please.” 

“Sir, I am sorry for the slip.” Miss Prine went 
out of the room, leaving Rosemarie alone with her 
grandfather. 

“Oh, Grandfather, did you tell her I might play 
with them?” Rosemarie asked with clasped hands 
and delight in her face. 

“Yes, I did mention something of the sort in a 



THE LITTLE SILVER BELL 185 

wire to Miss Prine. But I shall have to have a talk 
with her now before it is definitely decided. We will 
say no more until that time. Only tell me what you 
have been doing while I was away.” 

Rosemarie was surprised at this request. Usually 
her famous grandfather was too absorbed in his work 
and his books and his clever friends to give thought 
to her adventures. But Miss Prine had trained her 
so well that she was ready for the social emergency. 
She sat down on a footstool at her grandfather’s knee, 
and told him her days. That is, she told him of 
everything but the masquerading. She dared not, 
of course, tell him that! 

But he scarcely heard her words. He was looking 
at her in a musing, troubled fashion. You see, he 
had been thinking of Gentian in the time he was 
away, and of what she had said of Rosemarie. It 
was Gentian who had set him to thinking. 

Right in the middle of the account of Rosemarie’s 
lonely adventures, came a knock at the door, and 
there was Miss Prine again. 

“If you please, sir, the village Policeman is down 
in the hall again. It’s the third time this evening. 
Shall we say you’re still busy?” 

“No—no. I’ll come. And we will finish this 
to-morrow,” the Artist promised Rosemarie. “It 
is bed-time now anyway. Good night, and sleep 
well.” 

But out in the passage he asked of Miss Prine in a 
low voice, quickly, “Tell me: You spoke of the 
Masker before the child! Has she been allowed to 


THE WIND BOY 


186 

hear anything about it? That was against my 
strictest orders. Has she been frightened ?” 

“No indeed. She has heard nothing,” Miss Prine 
assured him. “It was just in my eagerness not to 
let you think that I had acted inadvisedly in not 
allowing her to play with those dreadful children 
that I let the word slip. Aside from this single time, 
she has heard not a word.” 

“Why do you call them ‘dreadful children’? I 
liked the little girl ever so much. I had quite a talk 
with her in the tulip garden.” 

“Yes, I dare say you would notice nothing. They 
are quiet enough, and well spoken. Clean too. But 
the Policeman has a tale for you about them that 
may make you change your mind as to letting Rose¬ 
marie have them for playmates.” 

“Is that what the Policeman wants now, to com¬ 
plain about those youngsters?” 

“Yes, he caught the boy with the mask. He’s 
come about that.” 

The Artist’s face grew more sober and more sober 
all the way down the stairs, as he thought about this. 

You know all that the Policeman had to tell him, 
and so you shall hear what happened to Rosemarie 
that night. For a wonderful thing did happen. 

She went to bed with a glad heart. For had not 
her grandfather hinted that she might be allowed 
to play with Kay and Gentian? 

Oh, if only she were let do that she would try never 
to be naughty again! She wondered if Kay had got 
the mask safely to the Wind Boy, and was the Wind 


THE LITTLE SILVER BELL 187 

Boy back with his comrades now, one of them again, 
in the Clear Land? Perhaps she herself would see 
the Wind Boy some time. Kay had said that he 
liked to take his naps in the tulip garden. To¬ 
morrow she would go softly there, and watch. She 
would make Miss Prine sit on the lowest stone step 
and wait for her; for Rosemarie was not supposed 
to go so far as the tulip garden by herself. Yes, she 
would surely look for the Wind Boy in the tulip 
garden to-morrow. 

In the midst of these happy thoughts she fell asleep. 

On a stand at the head of Rosemarie’s bed stood a 
little silver bell. This was for her to ring if she should 
wake in the night and want anything. She never 
did ring it, for she always slept right through the 
night as healthy children should. 

But to-night a strange thing happened. The little 
silver bell at the head of her bed was rung, ever so 
lightly, but not by Rosemarie. It was rung so softly 
that Miss Prine, sleeping in the next room with the 
door ajar, did not hear it at all. But being right at 
Rosemarie’s ear, it woke her. 

She sat up in her bed. Who had rung it? The 
room w r as silvery with starlight and Rosemarie could 
see about in it quite well. Over by one of the win¬ 
dows, the window where the big doll house stood, was 
something brighter than the starlight. When Rose¬ 
marie looked at it hard, she saw that it was a person. 

“Who are you?” she whispered through the room, 
for she was not sure at first that it was not just a 
dream. 


188 


THE WIND BOY 


The person did not answer at once, but moved 
toward her in starry-brightness. She came to the 
edge of Rosemarie’s bed, and sat down there, on the 
silk coverlet. 

“Don’t you know who I am?” the starry person 
asked then. 

“Why, you’re Nan, the maid next door.” 

“Yes, I am Nan.” 

“But what a beautiful robe you are wearing! It’s 
like the sky. It makes you like a fairy. No, nicer 
than any fairy!” 

“Do you like it so much? Gentian does too. And 
now she has made herself one like it.” 

“Gentian has! Oh, if I am allowed to play with 
her, will she let me see it? Is it really as beautiful as 
yours? I thought she had only shabby, faded 
clothes, rather funny ones. Will she show me her 
starry one?” 

“Yes, I think she would, if you were allowed to 
play with her. But now you will not be allowed, 
for your grandfather will think it dangerous.” 

“Oh, but he has promised that perhaps I may. 
Only to-night! Truly.” 

“That was before he saw the Policeman.” 

They were whispering, their faces close. Nan’s 
eyes were more sky-like than her night gown, and her 
face was shining too. There was a smell of pine 
needles about her and spruce, green leaves and 
arbutus blossoms. 

Rosemarie’s breath was stopped with wonder. 
“You smell like the woods,” she said, forgetting 


THE LITTLE SILVER BELL 189 

Nan’s words of the Policeman and what they might 
mean. 

“I have just come from the mountains.” 

“Not just to-night? How could you get ’way 
there and back just to-night? I saw you from my 
window at supper time!” 

“Oh, in my starry-brightness. That’s what 
Gentian calls this night gown—I can do that easily 
enough.” 

Rosemarie reached her hand to touch the starry 
stuff. But her fingers felt nothing at all! She 
might as well have tried to touch starlight. 

“Are you a dream?” she cried then. “Am I 
asleep?” 

Nan laughed merrily at that. Strange that that 
laugh did not waken Miss Prine! 

“Not at all, Rosemarie! Could a dream ring your 
bell, do you think?” 

“You did ring my bell, didn’t you! That was 
what woke me. But if you did ring it, then how did 
you get way over to the window there before I could 
open my eyes?” 

Nan laughed again, but more softly. “If you 
will promise not to think me a dream, I will tell you,” 
she said, leaning close, until Rosemarie saw deep into 
her eyes. “Well, then, I rang the bell while I was 
still in the mountains. Can you believe that? I 
came all the way in the instant while you were 
waking, after I had rung the bell!” 

Rosemarie gasped. “Truly? Truly?” she asked. 

But really she did not mean to ask, for she knew 


190 THE WIND BOY 

very well that it was truly, truly. It was only her 
surprise. 

But to come all the way from the mountains in the 
instant waking took after she heard the bell at her 
ear! And how could Nan ever have rung the bell 
when she was away off out there ? It was too strange 
to understand, but never too strange to believe, 
when Nan said it. 

“Why can’t I touch you, since you’re real and 
not a dream?” Rosemarie asked. 

“ Because I’m in my starry-brightness.” 

“Oh, is your nightrobe magic?” 

“No, of course not. Miss Prine should teach you 
not to be so superstitious. There’s no such thing as 
magic.” 

“That’s what Miss Prine always says, too. But I 
thought now she must be wrong. What else but 
magic can keep me from touching you and let you 
travel so fast, and ring a bell from all that way 
away ? ” 

“Dear Rosemarie, if I could tell you that I would 
be very wonderful. I myself don’t know the ‘hows’ 
of it. But I do know it is not magic.” 

They were silent for a while, while Rosemarie 
wondered. But she kept her gaze on Nan’s eyes of 
sky and knew it was no dream. Then she remem¬ 
bered what Nan had said of the Policeman. 

“What about the Policeman? How can he stop 
me from playing with Gentian and Kay?” she asked. 

“Well, you see he came to-night to tell your 
grandfather that Kay is the Masker. Your grand- 


THE LITTLE SILVER BELL 


191 

father will not like that in Kay. He will think him 
bad and mischievous.” 

“But Kay isn’t the Masker. He isn’t bad and 
mischievous. He is brave and splendid.” 

“Yes, but so long as your grandfather thinks he 
was the Masker he will think him bad and mis¬ 
chievous.” 

“And if I tell him / was the Masker,” Rosemarie 
whispered ruefully, “He will think / am bad and 
mischievous! And what will he do to me?” 

“I don’t know that. But I do know, for the 
Policeman has told me, that he is going to shame Kay 
before all the village to-morrow morning. He is to 
be expelled from school for a week. And his mother 
will be very sad.” 

“Oh bother! But why doesn’t Kay tell them it 
was I, Rosemarie? He must surely do that. And 
then I’ll get the punishment.” 

“No, Kay won’t say it was you. He didn’t even 
tell me that.” 

“How did you know?” 

“I only guessed.” 

“Oh, dear! What shall I do? Why won’t Kay 
tell?” 

“He doesn’t want you to be scolded. He must be 
fond of you.” 

“What can I do?” 

“What do you think you can do?” 

There was a silence. Then Rosemarie said, “But 
I am afraid of Grandfather!” 

Nan did not answer that. 


192 


THE WIND BOY 


“Well, must I tell him?” 

Nan did not answer that either.. 

“And when I do, I suppose I’ll never be allowed 
to play with Kay and Gentian ever. That would be 
the biggest punishment he could make! I didn’t 
know I was being so naughty, truly. I didn’t know 
about the little boy who was made sick until Kay 
told me. It was only a game.” 

“Yes, I know.” 

With Nan’s eyes of sky so close to hers, Rosemarie 
suddenly had to stop feeling sorry for herself. Self 
pity faded into nothingness. 

“When shall I tell him?” she asked. 

“Now, so that you can sleep well. He is sitting 
up late in his study. I saw the light as I came to¬ 
ward the house.” 

“Oh, did you come in through the secret door?” 
Rosemarie asked then, delighted by the sudden 
thought. “It is my secret door, you know. How 
did you find it?” 

“Not by the secret door you mean. But it was a 
secret door, and I found it for myself. Indeed it was 
the only way I could come to you to-night.” 

“Wasn’t it the door behind the syringa bush? 
That’s the only secret door I know of.” Rosemarie’s 
eyes were sparkling at the mystery of it. 

“No, not the door behind the syringa bush.” 

“Where, where is there another?” Rosemarie was 
all eagerness. 

“My secret door was a little one I found waiting 
ajar—a little door into your mind.” 


THE LITTLE SILVER BELL 


193 

Rosemarie shook her head at that. She did not 
try to understand. 

“Til go to Grandfather, then,” she said, putting 
her feet out on the polished floor. “Do you suppose 
he will be terribly angry?” 

“I don’t know, I hope not, for I don’t think that 
you were really very naughty.” 

But when Rosemarie had opened the door into 
the passage she looked back at Nan. “It’s pitchy 
dark,” she whispered. “All the lights are out, and 
everyone in bed.” 

It was true. The passage and the stairs were in 
utter darkness, except for a thin, pale starlight that 
came from a high window somewhere. 

Rosemarie ran back to Nan. But in the middle 
of the room she stopped. You could not be a coward 
before those eyes. 

But she asked, “Will you be waiting here when I 
get back—to tuck me in, Nan?” 

“Yes, I’ll be waiting here,” Nan promised. 

So Rosemarie took heart and went out into the 
dark passage. There she felt her way along the 
wall to the stairs. No starlight reached the stairs, 
and all was utter darkness. Rosemarie had her eyes 
tight shut all the way down. But that made no 
difference; she could have seen nothing with them 
open. 

There was more starlight in the hall beneath, and 
that helped her to the second flight of stairs. They 
were long and turning. But at their foot was her 
Grandfather’s library door. Rosemarie, to her 


THE WIND BOY 


194 

mingled relief and fear, saw the light shining through 
a crack at the bottom. She knocked, ever so softly. 

“Who is there?” 

“I. Rosemarie.” 

The Artist came in quick strides to the door and 
flung it open. He looked down in amaze at Rose¬ 
marie there in the darkness, in her little white night 
gown and bare feet. 

“Oh, Grandfather, there is something I must tell 
you!” 

“Couldn’t it wait until morning, my dear child?” 

“No. At least Nan thought I couldn’t sleep well 
till you knew.” 

“Who is Nan?” 

“The girl from the mountains. But it’s the 
Masker I’ve got to tell you about. Oh, Grand¬ 
father, it was I. All the time. Never Kay! Kay 
only caught me and took the mask away to the 
Wind Boy.” 

The Artist’s brows knit into a puzzled frown. 
What was all this about a girl from the mountains, 
and the Wind Boy! Was it Gentian’s Wind Boy? 
And Rosemarie the Masker! And what was she 
doing here, his perfectly cared-for little grand¬ 
daughter, standing in the dark, draughty hall in her 
night gown and bare feet? Where was Miss Peine 
anyway? What was it all about?” 

He ran his hand through his clustering gray curls, 
curls so like the Wind Boy’s. Then he led Rose¬ 
marie into the room and made her sit on the sofa. 
He wrapped her round and round, bare feet and all, 


Rosemarie knocked , ever so softly. 


i95 















































































































































































THE LITTLE SILVER BELL 197 

in a gay, striped Roman shawl. Then, pulling a 
chair up in front of her, he sat down in it. 

“Now, Rosemarie, begin at the very beginning, 
and tell me everything. Don’t cry. (Rosemarie 
had not known there were tears in her eyes). How 
could you be the Masker? That’s absurd.” 

So Rosemarie wiped away the surprising tears with 
a corner of the shawl, and did tell her grandfather 
everything. 

When she had come to an end, he sat silent for 
many minutes. Then he said slowly, wonderingly, 
“Nan in starry-brightness in your room must have 
been a dream. And the Wind Boy—well perhaps 
he’s a dream of Gentian and Kay’s. But all the 
rest seems real enough.” 

And then, to Rosemarie’s utter surprise, her 
grandfather suddenly took her upon his knee, Roman 
shawl and all, and leaned her head against his shoul¬ 
der. “How lonely you have been!” he said in the 
saddest, kindest voice. “It is all your selfish old 
grandfather’s fault. You should have had play¬ 
mates all this while. Mea culpa!” 

They sat that way for a long time, not speaking 
more. And after a time, Rosemarie in spite of the 
deliciousness of being loved by her grandfather fell 
asleep. . . . 

When she woke, it was morning, and she was back 
in her bed in her high nursery room. But it was still 
very early, and Miss Prine was not yet stirring. 

Rosemarie lay, the only one awake, in the great 
still house. Right at once, though, she knew that 


THE WIND BOY 


198 

last night had not been a dream, for she was still 
wrapped around in the Roman shawl from the sofa 
in her grandfather’s library. Oh, wouldn’t Miss 
Prine be surprised when she found her so! But she 
couldn’t scold. Grandfather wouldn’t let her! 

Rosemarie sat up. There was sunlight instead of 
starlight at the windows now. But over the silk 
coverlet and all through the room hung, faintly, the 
smell of pine and spruce and green leaves and arbutus. 
Oh, why hadn’t she kept herself awake to say 
“good-night” to Nan! 


CHAPTER XVI 


ROSEMARIE COMES TO SCHOOL 

I N THE little brown house over the hedge Kay 
was waking too. But even before his eyes were 
open he remembered that something unpleasant 
was waiting for him in this day. What was it? Oh 
yes, the mask business. The Policeman had told 
the Artist that he, Kay, was the Masker. Before 
night everyone in the village would think he was the 
Masker—everyone, that is, except Gentian and Nan 
and Detra. They would not believe the Policeman, 
but they would be bothered all the same. 

But why was Gentian laughing? Had she forgot¬ 
ten all about last night and the Policeman? 

Kay jumped out of bed and ran to the head of the 
stairs. The laughter was coming up from the sitting 
room. And there was Gentian clapping her hands. 
She only clapped her hands when she was very, very 
happy. 

“What is it? Why are you laughing?” Kay called 
down to her. 

At his voice she came dancing out into the hall. 
She was still in her night gown, and her hair was all 
rumpled from her pillow. Her cheeks were rosy 
from sleep. 


199 


200 


THE WIND BOY 


“Oh, Kay,” she cried. “Do come and see the 
Wind Boy! He is perfect!” 

“Is the Wind Boy down there? Hello, Wind 
Boy!” Kay sang out. 

“Oh no. Not our Wind Boy. The statuette. I 
could hardly wait for morning to see if Mother had 
followed him to the Clear Land, and got him happy. 
I was awake before dawn.” 

But Kay was bounding down the stairs. He had 
forgotten about the statuette. Of course! Well some 
good thing had come out of last night at any rate! 

Detra was just finishing her early breakfast at the 
little low table by the tulips. And right in the middle 
of the table, with the early sun just touching his head, 
stood the finished Wind Boy. 

Kay went close, and stood looking. Yes, Gentian 
was right. He was perfect! It was the Wind Boy 
as he had looked when he caught the mask that Nan 
had thrown, and scattered it to bits on the lawn. 
His face, and body, too, were all alight and joyous. 
He was about to fly up, up and away into the blue 
air. He was standing on very tiptoes, his wings 
spread wide, his whole body, every bit of him, ready. 

Indeed the statuette, little as it was, and made 
only of plastilina, was so alive and lightened from 
within that it was not easy for the children to remem¬ 
ber that it was just a statuette and not the Wind 
Boy himself. 

“0 Mother! He is just himself. As he became 
last night! Nan was right. You did follow him up 
there then!” 


ROSEMARIE COMES TO SCHOOL 201 


Detra was smiling happily, but sleepily. She had 
not been to bed at all, but had worked all night in 
the Clear Land. 

“Yes,” she said, “Last night he was different. I 
saw him right. He had never been like that before. 
There was always a cloud over him somehow. But 
last night he shone out to my eyes clear and radiant 
like this. Oh I have never, never done work of 
this sort before. I know that.” 

Kay and Gentian were looking at each other now. 
Their eyes said, “She thinks she did it. But it was 
really us—ourselves and Nan. We made the Wind 
Boy happy.” 

And Kay exclaimed aloud, “I don’t care now. 
They can do what they want to me. It was worth 
it.” 

Detra looked away from the statuette and at 
Kay, puzzled. “What don’t you care about, Kay? 
What is worth it? And worth what?” 

But with her words, the village clock began to 
strike. It was seven o’clock. 

“Oh, I must hurry,” Detra cried, jumping up, 
“or I shall miss piy train.” 

She suddenly kissed and hugged both her children, 
snatched up her cape, and ran away out of the house. 

But Kay had meant what he had said. The 
statuette was so lovely, and his mother was made so 
happy by it, that he was now ready to face the day, 
and all the humiliation it might hold for him. He 
marched off to school by Gentian’s side, with his 
coppery head held high. 


202 


THE WIND BOY 


And the minute he got into the school yard he 
knew that the thing that was to happen had already 
begun. When the children, playing around the 
door, saw his approach, they pretended great fear 
and ran away screaming, “The Masker! He’ll bite! 
0 ! O! The Masker!” 

So the Policeman had already been talking, and 
the news had spread. 

But there was nothing to do but march in and 
take his accustomed seat, and there wait for what 
must come. 

Miss Todd, he thought, kept her gaze on him 
steadily and strangely from the very first. There 
was an unusual hubbub in the room, but it stopped 
when he entered. 

Then school began. 

Kay’s cheeks were afire, but his head was very, 
very high. He was thinking: “I’m glad Mother 
won’t know till to-night anyway. She’ll have all 
day to think about the Wind Boy and be happy in.” 
But he was sorry for Gentian, who was sitting very 
erect behind her little desk, with her hands tightly 
clasped in her lap, and her lips set together. 

At first school went as usual. Miss Todd’s perfect 
order and drill were not to be shaken by the excite¬ 
ment that lay under the morning. But whenever 
Kay looked up from his books or paper, he seemed 
to find her keen eyes upon him. And she did not 
call on him to recite, although his turn came over and 
over. She passed him by, but still looking at him. 

Never had school seemed so long to Kay and 


ROSEMARIE COMES TO SCHOOL 203 

Gentian, though in truth it had often seemed long 
enough! 

Well, if Kay was to be expelled and put to shame 
why didn’t Miss Todd do it now? That would be 
better than this! Behind the ticking of the school 
clock, and the lessons and the recitations, the whole 
school was simply waiting. Everyone knew that. 
And then, toward recess time, at last it came! 

A step out in the hall. A boy near Kay whispered, 
“The Policeman!” 

So that was it! They had been waiting for the 
Policeman to come to take him away to prison. In 
his own country they did not put little boys into 
prison; so he had not thought of that happening. 
But who knew what they might or might not do 
here in this strange, foreign land! 

Well, let them. Now, less than ever, did he mean 
to tell on Rosemarie. 

Sounded a knock at the school-room door. 

Everyone jumped a little, even Miss Todd,—just 
as though, after the steps, they had not been waiting 
for it! 

Kay straightened back his shoulders and tried not 
to look at Gentian. But somehow he could not help 
seeing her —her wide, blue gentian eyes swam before 
his gaze, eyes terrified for him. 

Then Miss Todd opened the door. And there 
came in not the Policeman, but the Artist, and with 
him Rosemarie! 

The school gasped in its surprise. You could hear 
it all about the room. But the Artist did not take 


THE WIND BOY 


204 

the chair Miss Todd so politely offered him. He 
came and stood by her desk and looked at all the 
children. He looked at them all in turn, and they 
looked back. It made Gentian think of the Shoe- 
man who had measured her and Kay by looking into 
their eyes. What was the great Artist measuring 
them for? 

When he came to Gentian he smiled a greeting. 
But she could not smile back. She was too troubled 
for Kay. 

But the Artist seemed to understand her soberness. 

He spoke rather quickly then, in a low, clear voice. 

“I have come to tell you that the Masker has been 
found,” he said, “And that it will not frighten you 
again at twilight. You can play on the streets near 
my house now without thought of it. It will never 
come again.” 

Miss Todd at her desk nodded. And now there 
was no doubt about it any longer—she was looking 
at Kay in great sternness. But the Artist was not 
stern. He said, “And the Policeman assures me 
that he knows who the Masker was. It was, he says, 
a boy,—a boy in this school. Indeed he caught him 
with the mask in his hands. His name is Kay. Is 
Kay here now ? ” 

“Kay, stand up.” Miss Todd’s voice, to Kay’s 
surprise, had sorryness mixed with its sternness. 

Kay stood up by his seat. 

The Artist looked at him seriously but kindly. 
But Kay was too troubled and ashamed to see the 
kindness. 


ROSEMARIE COMES TO SCHOOL 205 

“I hear that for many days, always at twilight, 
Kay, you have gone around in a horrid mask, fright¬ 
ening other children. The Policeman caught you 
with the mask, so he thinks it must have been you 
all the time. Was it?” 

“I was just carrying the mask when he caught me. 
I had never been the Masker.” 

“If you weren't, who was?” 

Kay did not answer that. He stayed silent, trying 
hard not to look at Rosemarie. 

“Won't you tell?” 

“No.” 

All the other children and even Miss Todd gasped 
at Kay's firm “No.” 

It must have been because Kay was a foreigner and 
did not know how great a man the Artist was, and how 
important to this village, that he dared speak so firmly 
his “No!” Why, the Artist had given them this 
very school, and its big playground. No other vil¬ 
lage of its size in the country had such a fine school 
and playground! 

But the Artist did not mind Kay's firm “No” 
a bit. He liked it. 

“Well, Kay, if you won't tell,” he said, “Then 
Rosemarie is here just for that.” He turned and 
looked down at his little granddaughter. 

Rosemarie had stood all this while looking at no one 
in the school but Kay. She was a little shy at being 
up there before all the eyes of the village children, 
but aside from that shyness she was her natural self, 
her merry self, with dimples just around the corner. 


206 THE WIND BOY 

Now that her grandfather had turned to her she 
had to speak. She did it quickly, rather breath¬ 
lessly and still looking at Kay. 

“/ was the Masker. It was I who frightened you 
all. My governess has her supper at twilight, and 
then I could get out without her 
knowing. Last night Kay chased 
me and caught me, and I gave him 
the Mask. He was taking it back 
to the Wind Boy to tear up, when 
the Policeman caught him. He never 
wore it at all/’ 

Never was a school room so silent 
as that school was for a minute after 
Rosemarie had finished. Then the 
Artist spoke again. 

“Rosemarie didn’t know about 
the little boy who was made sick. 
You see, we did not want her to be 
frightened, and so no one mentioned 
the Masker to her ever, or what harm 
it was doing. Rosemarie had no children to play 
with. And so she found that running around in the 
twilight, frightening people and looking in at win¬ 
dows where there were children, was the next best 
thing to having playmates. 

“That is why it would not be fair to punish her 
for her masquerading—anymore than she has already 
been punished. And now I want her to have chil¬ 
dren to play with forever after, so that she will not 
have to look into windows. And so I am here to 



ROSEMARIE COMES TO SCHOOL 207 

ask Miss Todd if she may come to this school, and 
indeed begin working with you and playing with 
you this very morning!” 

And then the Artist added one thing more. “I 
hope you will all be friends with Rosemarie, for she 
needs your friendship. But already, you know now 
from what has happened, that she has one true and 
loyal friend here, and that is Kay.” 

Then after a few quiet words at the door with Miss 
Todd, the Artist went away, leaving Rosemarie at 
school. Just at first the children could hardly attend 
to their lessons. It was as though a princess, at least, 
had come to school among them. Before this they 
had only glimpsed Rosemarie as she went by, sitting 
between her two attendants in the back seat of her 
grandfather’s big car, wrapped ’round in furs or 
silk. And now here she was, one of them, in a plain 
gingham frock and with everyday leather sandals 
and brown socks. Why, she looked just like any 
school-girl! 

But almost at once Rosemarie’s merry brown eyes 
and the toss of her dark dancing curls did away with 
their feeling of strangeness. She was truly one of 
them, even before they went out to play at recess time. 

But recess did add the finishing touch. Rosemarie 
was such a merry little girl! It was she who thought 
up the games to play, and right away led in every¬ 
thing. You would think she had been comrading 
with other children all her life. Perhaps that was 
because she had so often imagined what she would 
do, had she playmates! 


208 


THE WIND BOY 


And of course, she never, as the other children had 
done in the past, left Gentian and Kay out. Rather, 
(C. they were the first 

Gad~ 



They raced and shouted and 
laughed with the rest, 

corner. “How can you run 
“My breath’s gone.” 


she turned to in 
everything. Had she 
not been watching 
them from her high 
nursery window fora 
year now? Did she 
not know them well ? 

So for the first 
time since they had 
come to this village, 
Kay and Gentian 
forgot that they 
were foreigners and 
left off all strange¬ 
ness. They raced 
and shouted and 
laughed with the 
rest. 

And at the close 
of school Rosemarie 
ran home between 
them, the happiest 
little girl in the vil¬ 
lage. 

But she pulled 
them to a stop at a 
so fast?” she asked. 















ROSEMARIE COMES TO SCHOOL 209 

“It’s the sandals, I think,” Kay answered. 

And then all the rest of the way home they walked 
very slowly, for Kay and Gentian had to tell Rose¬ 
marie about the Shoeman and his blue-curtained store 
with the crystal light flooding down the stairs, and 
the little oven bird in place of a doorbell. Rosemarie 
was enchanted. 

Gentian and Kay were very late in getting home 
from school that day. 

When Nan saw their faces, she asked, “What 
happened to you? Was school so wonderful?” 

“Oh, it was!” they cried. And then, between 
them, they told her all about the morning. Nan was 
as happy as they over all that had happened. 

“And now school will never seem unpleasant to 
you again,” she said when they were done. “You 
will go there gladly every morning, just as the 
other children do. It is your school now, and the 
village will get to be your village. That is just 
as your mother wants it. How contented she will 
be!” 

But they were hardly done with their dinner, be¬ 
cause they had talked so much, before Rosemarie 
came skipping through the hole in the hedge just 
as though she had been doing it every day for a year, 
and was at their window. 

Her dancing curls and merry eyes might have 
belonged to some fairy; but her cheeks were too hard 
and rosy for any but a very human little girl! 

“Come in! Come in!” cried the children. 

“No. Come out!” called back Rosemarie. “Let’s 


210 


THE WIND BOY 


play in the tulip garden. Grandfather says we may 
and without Miss Prine’s coming along to bother 
either!” 

“But Mother doesn’t let us go there,” the children 
said wistfully. It would be such a beautiful place 
to play! 

Nan had heard from the kitchen and now she 
came into the sitting room. “Your mother would 
not mind your going through the hedge now,” she 
assured them, “Since it’s Rosemarie herself that 
asks you. It was only because she thought you were 
not wanted there that she forbade it before.” 

But Rosemarie had run around and in at the door. 
Now she was in the room with them. To Gentian’s 
and Kay’s surprise, she threw her arms about Nan’s 
neck and gave her a great hug. 

“Do you know Nan?” they asked. 

“Of course I do. Didn’t she come in starry-bright¬ 
ness to tell me everything and make me brave? 
Grandfather thinks she was only a dream. But he 
won’t think so now when I show her to him! And 
see what she made happen! I’m your playmate now. 
I’m even going to your school! A funny dream to 
manage all that!” 

Then Nan and Gentian and Kay and Rosemarie 
all laughed together—though Kay and Gentian did 
not yet know exactly what it was about. And just 
as Gentian, Monday morning up in the Clear School, 
had danced ’round and ’round in the arbor and then 
out of it,—so here now these four took hands and 
danced ’round and ’round in the room and out the 


ROSEMARIE COMES TO SCHOOL 211 


door, and there 'round and ’round under the cherry- 
tree, to the music of their laughter. 

But it was Nan who stopped first. “I am forget¬ 
ting all about the dishes,” she said. 

At that they laughed more. “What a thing to 
remember!” Rosemarie cried. 

But Kay said, “Nan is like that. If there weren’t 
dishes, or some such thing to be done, I think she’d 
fly straight away and be a fairy.” 

“May we help you with the dishes then?” asked 
Rosemarie. “I never helped anybody washing 
dishes. Do you do it in the kitchen? How jolly!” 

So the children went in with Nan and helped clear 
the table. Nan gave them a clean towel each—a 
towel with the sunshine still in it, for they had come 
from the line at the door—where Nan had hung them 
that morning—and after she had dipped the glasses 
and plates, knives and forks into rainbow soap suds 
and washed them well, the children took them to 
dry. 

Then Rosemarie, because she was the guest, was 
allowed to sweep up the crumbs under the table, 
while Kay held the dust-pan for her, and to hang 
the newly washed towels out in the sunshine at the 
back door again. It was the greatest fun in her life! 

“Now for the tulip garden,” Kay cried, who had 
grown a little impatient of all this houseworking. 

“Good-bye, then. Come home in time for sup¬ 
per,” Nan said. 

“Oh, but you come too, Nan,” Rosemarie pleaded. 
“It will be so much more fun with you along!” 


212 


THE WIND BOY 


“But I thought you didn’t want a grown-up. 
Miss Prine’s not going.” 

Rosemarie laughed, her lightest, jolliest laugh. 
“Well, you’re not Miss Prine,” she said. “Why, 
you’re like us , ONLY MORE SO! ” 

So Nan put off the mending she had intended until 
evening, and ran away with the children through 
the hole in the hedge, and down the grassy paths 
toward the tulip garden. 


CHAPTER XVII 


DETRA MEETS THE ARTIST 
D when they got there it was Nan who 



thought up the most wonderful things to 


play. They were games the children had 
never heard of before, and they were the greatest 
fun. Afterward they could never play them over 
again for somehow they could not remember how 
they had gone. That was strange, for at the time 
they had not seemed complicated, but simple as 
day. They found themselves in these games jump¬ 
ing farther than they had known they could jump, 
climbing higher, and hiding in more secret and 
smaller places that they would have thought of hiding 
in alone. 

But after a while they grew tired of even these 
wonderful games, and threw themselves down in the 
grassy centre of the tulip garden to rest. 

“Now,” said Rosemarie, “tell me more about 
the Wind Boy.” 

“But we have told you all,” Kay answered. 
“There is nothing more.” 

“Well, if he’s real, and not just a pretend game of 
yours,” Rosemarie asked, teasingly, “why doesn’t 
he come and play with us now?” 


213 


THE WIND BOY 


214 

“Why? I don’t know. Perhaps he will. Per¬ 
haps he’s been around all this time wanting to play 
with us.” 

But Gentian shook her head. “No Kay. He’s 
nowhere about. I’ve been looking for him all the 
afternoon. He hasn’t come once. I would have 
seen him if he had.” 

“Well, now that he has his Clear Children play¬ 
mates back, perhaps he won’t want to come down 
here any more. Perhaps he only came before be¬ 
cause he was lonely,” Kay said. 

Gentian did not answer that. She herself had 
been thinking exactly that thing for hours, with this 
difference, that she had not the heart to speak it. 

“Let’s try to see up into the Clear Land,” Rose¬ 
marie suggested then. “Why can’t we see that 
other tulip garden that you say is just up there over 
this one?” 

“We can try,” Kay answered. “But it takes a 
special kind of looking to see it, doesn’t it, Nan?” 

“How shall we look then?” 

“I don’t know exactly.” 

“But Gentian went there through the walls of 
Nan’s attic room, you told me. How did you do 
that, Gentian?” 

“By getting deep-still.” 

“What is that?” 

Gentian could not explain. 

Now Nan, who had been lying on her back, nib¬ 
bling a sweet grass blade, said, “There are many, 
many ways of looking to see into the Clear Land. 


DETRA MEETS THE ARTIST 215 

Let’s lie quietly on our backs here for a little and just 
try.” 

So the four playmates lay on their backs in the 
cool grass, sentineled about by many-coloured tulips, 
and tried to see up into the Clear Land. But for 
all their looking, and all their expectant stillness, 
it did not take shape for them in the blue spring 
air. 

Rosemarie was the first to grow impatient. She 
sat up. ‘‘Oh, there is nothing but blue sky up 
there,” she cried, “and white clouds. I think it 
must have been all your imagining, Kay and Gen¬ 
tian!” 

“No, no!” Kay protested. “It was not imagin¬ 
ing. You ought to see the statuette Mother has 
made of the Wind Boy. Then you’d know he was as 
real as you are!” 

“Oh, has your mother seen him too?” 

“Yes, of course. But the funny thing about that 
is that she does not remember she has!” 

“ I should think that was a funny thing. Why, it’s 
not possible. Should-” 

“Oh, but it is,” Nan interrupted. She was still 
stretched on her back, looking up into the blue spring 
air. “The truest and most important things are 
almost always those we have no words for. That 
is what Kay means by not remembering.” 

Although Nan said this very gently, and it ex¬ 
plained nothing to Rosemarie, still she at once be¬ 
lieved her, and laughed no more. 

“Let’s go and see the statuette,” Gentian sug- 


216 THE WIND BOY 

gested then. “You will love it, Rosemarie, just as 
we do.” 

“All right. Only not for a little while. It’s so 
cool and comfortable here in the grass, and Im find¬ 
ing such funny pictures in the clouds. Wait a little.” 

“I will go and bring the statuette here instead,” 
Nan said, getting up suddenly. “It will be all the 
more beautiful, out here with the sun on it.” 

Now, neither Kay nor Gentian would have thought 
of touching their mother’s work. But it never en¬ 
tered their heads that Nan was doing anything 
wrong. And they were right to believe in her so. 

She ran away to fetch the statuette. 

Rosemarie, who was sitting up, watched her go. 
“Running, she looks just like a relief of a dancing 
girl on an old Greek vase in Grandfather’s study,” 
she said. “She moves as though she were hearing 
music!” 

“Yes, she walks like that too; I’ve often noticed,” 
Kay agreed thoughtfully. “Sometimes I almost 
hear it too—the music. But never quite.” 

After that they lay quiet, saying no more, until 
Nan returned with the statuette held very carefully 
before her. She stood it up in their midst in the 
grassy place. 

Rosemarie knelt in front of it. “Oh, he is just as 
you described him, Kay,” she cried. “And he is 
shining, too. You didn’t describe that?” 

“I have been wondering about that shining,” Kay 
said. “When he’s just made out of gray plastilina 
where does the shiningness come from?” 


DETRA MEETS THE ARTIST 217 

“Why, that’s his happiness,” Nan tried to explain. 
“It shines out through his face, and even through his 
wings and body.” 

“But the statuette can’t be happy. It’s only a 
statuette!” 

“That is true. But your mother could copy the 
happiness, and here it is.” 

“I wonder,” Gentian said suddenly and softly, “I 
wonder if that is what the Clear Land is—happiness. 
And this land down here is only the copy of that 
shining? Even ourselves only copies?” 

“Oh, Gentian,” Nan said, “perhaps. You must 
ask the Great Artist up there sometime. I don’t 
know.” 

Rosemarie was still kneeling in front of the statu¬ 
ette. It was so alive seeming, she almost expected 
at any minute that the breeze would stir in its curls, 
and its wings bend. As the minutes passed, and it 
still remained, always ready for flight, but never 
flying, her strange surprise grew. That will tell you 
how real and beautiful Detra had made him. 

They were all so absorbed, Gentian in her new, 
searching thoughts, Rosemarie in the statuette, Kay 
in Rosemarie’s delight, and Nan in them all, that 
they did not hear the Artist coming down the path 
toward them. For some time he stood, all unknown, 
above them. But after a while he spoke. 

“What is this?” his voice rang with wonder and 
delight. “Who brought this beautiful thing here?” 

“I did,” Nan answered, no surprise in her face, as 
she turned to him. 


218 THE WIND BOY 

“Is it yours?” 

‘‘No. It is Detra’s. She made it last night. 
She did not go to bed at all.” 

“I should think not! Who is Detra?” 

“Why, she is our mother,” both Kay and Gentian 
cried together, proudly. 

“Why have I not known?” Then: “May I take 
it up?” he asked of Nan. 

You may think it strange that the great Artist 
should ask of Nan, the general housework girl, per¬ 
mission to touch a statuette he had found being 
played with by the children in his garden. But if 
you think so that is because you have not seen the 
statuette, and you have not seen Nan! 

“Yes,” she nodded. “Detra would like you to 
see it.” 

Very gently,—yes, reverently, the Artist raised the 
little statuette up and held it out before him in the 
afternoon sunlight. He turned it around and around 
slowly, his eyes narrow and intent, as Detra’s eyes 
had been narrow and intent when she worked on 
it. 

“Is she at home now, the artist?” he asked finally 

He spoke of Detra as the “ artist ”! The children’s 
eyes shone with pride. 

“No, she is at the factory,” Nan answered. “She 
works there all day. But she will come soon now.” 

“In a factory! The creator of this! Working in 
a factory!” 

“Yes, they are refugees. The father who went to 
the war has lost track of them. So Detra cannot 


DETRA MEETS THE ARTIST 


219 

stay at home with her children. She must earn 
bread and a roof for their heads, in a factory.” 

“There is better work for her than that,” the 
Artist promised. “She shall never go there again, if 
I can help it. May I take this to her house for its 
safety, and wait there for her?” 

“Nan nodded. “She will be glad of your praise,” 
she said. 

“But she must have more than praise,” the Artist 
spoke to himself. “She must be paid for this, if 
she will let me have it. It shall be done into bronze, 
and stand here just where I found it, beside a foun¬ 
tain. Here in the tulip garden the Wind Boy will 
stand always on tiptoe, about to fly. People will 
come far to see it.” 

At that Gentian clapped her hands. It was a 
soft clapping; but the Artist heard and turned to 
look down at her. He said, smiling now, for the 
first time, “You were right all the time, little Wind 
Girl, when you assured me that the Wind Boy was 
real. Your Mother has proved for us forever 
that he is real, real as ourselves!” 


Detra was very, very tired when she came home 
from the factory that evening. She had not been 
to bed at all the night before, you will remember. 
But when she turned in at her little gate, she braced 
her body, put back her shoulders, and made her 
steps light to greet her children. She came in with 
a high head, and her eyes smiling. 


220 


THE WIND BOY 


But she stopped amazed in the door. For there, 
rising to meet her, was the Artist, his head, topped 
with its mass of gray curls, just escaping the low 
ceiling of the little room. In his hand he still held 
carefully the Wind Boy. He could not let it go. 

“Good evening,” said Detra. 

“Good evening,” answered the Artist. 

Detra untied her cape at the neck and dropped it 
beside her onto a chair. In the cape, and in the 
shadow of the room, she had looked like a tired 
working woman. But now, without the dark gar¬ 
ment, and in the light of the candles that Nan had just 
brought in she was HERSELF, the self the children 
always saw. Her wide, frank eyes, her high-held 
head, her straight slim body, made her look like a 
brighter, and human, candle. 

The Artist bowed his head over the statuette. 
“This is beauty,” he said. 

“Yes, I know,” Detra replied, tranquilly. “I 
saw so clearly last night that I stayed up all night 
to work.” 

“I want to buy it of you, for my tulip garden.” 

And then Detra and the Artist sat down on the 
bench under the window and talked. Nan was get¬ 
ting supper, and setting the table. But it did not 
interrupt the artists, for she passed back and forth 
as softly as a shadow. Outside the door, under the 
cherry tree, Kay and Gentian and Rosemarie had 
gone to play. But the sound of their laughter did 
not disturb the Artist and Detra either. 

When you have created a beautiful thing, that is 


DETRA MEETS THE ARTIST 


221 


happiness. But the next happiness is to find some¬ 
one who understands what you have done, and knows 
that it is beautiful. Detra had both. 

But at last supper was ready, and the children had 
come in. Rosemarie stood by her grandfather. He 
got up. 

“I shall share this with the artists of the world,” 
he said. “To-morrow all the papers shall have news 
of your genius and its promise. Then your husband, 
if only he is alive and searching, must come upon 
your name, and find you.” 

“I have been thinking of that all the time you 
were talking,” Detra answered. “And if he does 
find us now, we shall take this money you are paying 
for the Wind Boy and buy the meadows behind this 
house, and he will turn them into the tree nurseries 
he has always wanted. Then we shall live on here 
in our adopted country, for there is nothing left 
in the old for us.” 

The Artist nodded, well pleased with the plan. “I 
shall send my wires and cables at once,” he promised. 
To-morrow the world will know that here in this 
little brown house dwells a new, great artist. If 
your husband is alive he must hear or read your name 
and come.” 

That night the little brown house, set like a step¬ 
ping stone to the Artist’s great one, could scarcely 
hold its happiness. At last the three had reason to 
hope that Hazar would find them! Soon. The 
Artist had been so sure. They had had no one to 
help them before. 


222 


THE WIND BOY 


But Gentian awoke in the night to remember the 
Wind Boy. He had said he liked her best. He had 
kissed her. He had been a perfect playmate. But 
now he had forgotten, and was staying away in the 
Clear Country with the Clear Children. 

In spite of all her happiness, Gentian’s blue eyes 
in the dark were touched with puzzled wonder. 


CHAPTER XVIII 


COMRADES 


HE Artist was true to his word. While the 



family in the little brown cottage slept, the 


telegraph wires and the radio waves and even 
the great cables under the oceans were busy with 
the news: our greatest living Artist has discovered a 
genius, a new and entirely unknown sculptress. He 
has bought a statuette from her and paid a fabulous 
sum for it. She is a refugee living with her children 
at his very door, and has lived there for a year with¬ 
out his knowing about her work. Then came her 
full name, and her story. 

By morning all the papers in the country had the 
story, and many printed it in headlines on their front 
pages. 

The people living in the Artist's village could 
hardly believe their eyes when they read. Their 
surprise and excitement were unbounded. Why, 
they had seen Detra every morning going to work 
in her dark cape and returning, like any working 
woman, tired at evening! There had been no sign 
about her of this; or if there had been a sign, they 
had failed to see it. 


223 


THE WIND BOY 


224 

Their curiosity led some of them, even so early 
in the morning, to go out and walk down the street to 
take a good look at the little brown cottage that now 
housed so much fame. There was even pride in their 
gaze, for after all Detra was one of them, one of their 
village! 

And when Kay and Gentian, with Rosemarie, ran 
by on their way to school, the villagers looked after 
them, thoughtfully. 

“Well, things will be different for those children 
after this,” they said wisely, nodding their heads at 
one another. “And I am not sorry. For better 
mannered or brighter children you would go far to 
find.” 

As for Detra, she went to her work that morning as 
usual. For she meant to tell her employer about her 
good fortune, and give him a fair chance to replace 
her. But her feet, to-day, sped lightly toward her 
task and she walked like a princess—not as a proud 
princess, you must know, but as a happy one. For 
she had a strong hope that somehow, somewhere, 
Hazar, the children’s father, would read the news, 
and so find her at last. 


And it did happen just as she hoped. In a city 
not far away, that very morning, a man with copper- 
coloured hair and eyes blue as the sea, stopped at a 
corner to read the headlines of the newspapers dis¬ 
played there on a stand. And immediately the 
name Detra shone out for him in rainbow lettering! 


COMRADES 


225 

It was his joy that made the lettering rainbow, of 
course, for it was just in printer’s ink for ordinary 
eyes. From that minute that copper-haired young 
man moved as in a cloud. 

For, that young man was Hazar, the children’s 
father. He had traced his wife and his children to 
this country directly after the war; and since then 
he had been wandering from city to city, seeking 
them. He had no money to advertise with, any 
more than had Detra. The war had left him penni¬ 
less and without work. So he could only tramp from 
city to city, doing odd jobs wherever he could get 
them. 

But he thought little about the jobs, for his real 
work was his searching. His eyes were always search¬ 
ing, searching among crowds in all the poorer sections 
of the cities. And he would stand outside of stores 
and factories at the close of the working day, hoping 
that Detra might come out of some dark door and 
see him waiting there! 

And then at the noon hour he would wait in the 
same way at the doors of school buildings. His 
blue eyes had grown haggard watching at school 
doors for two little coppery heads. 

But now that was ended. He was a young god 
striding away out of the city toward the road that 
led to the Artist’s village. People who had never 
given him a glance before, in his shabby workman’s 
clothes and with his haggard, seeking eyes, now 
turned to stare after him as he passed. 

But though it would not have taken him long by 


226 


THE WIND BOY 


train, it was long to walk, and Hazar was a day and a 
night in coming to the village. 

That day Nan had spent in making the little brown 
house spick and span from top to bottom; for al¬ 
though she had not yet told Detra, she knew that her 
work here was finished. The Mountains were call¬ 
ing her back. 

Kay and Gentian, in school at their desks, and 
playing at recess time, and all the afternoon as they 
played with Rosemarie in her grandfather’s gardens, 
often lifted their heads to listen,—for they thought 
they heard their father calling their names! 

When bedtime came again, Detra and the children 
and even Nan slept but fitfully, they were so alive 
with their expectation. And all during breakfast 
the children talked of nothing but their father. 

“Will he come to-day? Do you think he might 
come to-day?” 

But Detra, whose heart was beating even faster 
than her children’s, said, “No, no. Hush! We 
must not expect him so soon. Why, he may be 
across the ocean, across the world from us!” 

But in spite of those sensible words, at every step 
that Detra heard, she turned her head to listen! 
Would it turn in at the little swinging gate ? And the 
children listened with her. 

Detra’s employer had found some one at once to 
take Detra’s place, and so she was to be at home, 
to-day, all day, and every day. That was glorious 
for the children. 


COMRADES 


227 

But the glory faded, vanished for a little while, 
when Nan, after she had done the dishes and put 
the house in order, went up to her room, and came 
down with her knotted purple bundle. Detra 
looked at her in surprise. 

“Why Nan, you’re not going to go away from us! 
Not now\” 

Nan nodded. “There is nothing left here for me 
to do,” she said. “I cannot stay where there is no 
work.” 

Detra got up from the bench under the window, 
where she had been sitting arranging fresh tulips in 
the bowl. She looked at Nan earnestly and stead- 
« ly - 

She did not say, “But there is work, Nan! The 
house to keep clean, meals to cook, dishes to wash. 
Please stay on to do these things for us.” 

No, it did not enter Detra’s head to utter such 
foolishness. For Detra, now for the first time, began 
to understand about Nan, and what she might be. 
That had not been the work she had left her moun¬ 
tains to do. She had come to help Detra toward 
happiness. And now Detra was happy, and all 
was well with her and the children. 

So Detra said not a word, but stood looking at 
Nan steadily. 

But the children were dismayed. They cried, 
“Oh, please, please, Nan, don’t go away and leave 
us! You must never do that!” 

Nan turned to them, smiling. “Why, unless I go 
back to the mountains, then how can you come to 


228 THE WIND BOY 

visit me there? And that is what I want you to do. 
Soon!” 

Their hearts were eased. 

Detra at last said, “Are you a good fairy, Nan? 
Is that what you are?” 

“No, I am not a fairy.” But she answered 
gravely, as though in reply to a sensible question,— 
as though she might very well have been a fairy, 
only it happened that she was not. “I am just a 
girl from the mountains.” 

Detra asked no more, and Nan moved toward the 
door. Kay and Gentian heard the music that she 
walked to then. There could be no doubt about it 
this time, though it was faint and far. 

Gentian ran after her. “Oh, may I have one last 
peep at the starry-brightness?” she begged. 

Nan held the purple bundle to her. Gentian 
parted the sides a little, and looked in. Yes, there 
was the blue, shining with its stars. Gentian bent 
above the purple bundle, looking into the sky. If 
she had not remembered her own bit of sky folded 
away upstairs in her drawer, she could never have 
had done with looking now. 

When she lifted her face, her eyes had caught the 
reflection of the stars. 

Nan tied her bundle a little tighter then, so that no 
one as she passed along the street might catch a 
glimpse of the stars or suspect what wonderful thing 
was tied away there. Then she said good-bye. 

The children clung to her as far as the gate, and 
stood watching there while she went away down the 


COMRADES 


229 

street. But they could not be unhappy over her 
going. For this thing was true about Nan,—no one 
could ever be unhappy because of her! But they 
stayed swinging on the gate, silent and thoughtful, 
after she had gone around the corner. 


A little way around the corner, as Nan walked to 
the sound of that music, faint and far, she met a 
young man. He was striding along with the morning 
sun in his eyes. His hair was a flame of copper. 

Nan could not help knowing at once that it was 
the children’s father, Hazar, nearing the end of his 
search. She spoke to him, coming to a stand before 
him on the sidewalk. But his eyes were full of the 
morning sun, rather blinded; and to him it seemed 
that it was only a voice in the street, speaking to 
him out of the sunlight. He could never remember 
afterwards having seen Nan. But he remembered 
her words. 

“If you are looking for Detra’s little brown cottage, 
it is just around that corner. And Gentian and Kay 
are out in front, swinging on the gate.” 

The young man did not even thank her, for you 
see he never realized, until afterwards the children 
told him so, that a young girl must have stopped 
to give him the direction. He truly thought it was 
only a voice out of the sunshine, the morning sun¬ 
shine that was full in his eyes. But he heard the 
words well enough. 

And suddenly he started running. He ran around 


THE WIND BOY 


230 

the corner as fast as his long legs would take him. 
And the next minute, both the children on the gate 
had uttered shrill glad cries that brought Detra to 
the door. 

When she got there, she saw Hazar with Gentian 
and Kay tight in his arms, as though he would never 
let them go. 

Then Detra cried out too, and ran down the walk. 
But Hazar was quicker than she. He let the children 
go and met her halfway from the door. 

The Artist, at that minute, was coming through 
the hole in the hedge. He had had it made larger, 
for convenience, the day before.—He was coming for 
a morning call. But he stopped short now. And 
the morning sunshine got into his eyes, or something 
did; for he saw no more, but turned away, and 
waited until later for his visit to the little brown 
house. 


That was a marvelous day for Kay and Gentian. 
They held to their father’s hands, leaned against 
him whenever he stood still, and followed him about 
like shadows. Most of the morning they wandered 
over the meadows at the back of the house while 
their father and Detra talked about the young tree 
nurseries that he was to grow there. The children 
were so happy they were almost silent. 

As for Detra, they looked at her wonderingly again 
and again. For she did not seem like their mother 
at all now. She was like a wide-eyed young girl 


COMRADES 


231 

listening to a fairy tale. They had all forgotten 
about school, of course. But no one ever blamed 
them for that! 

In the afternoon Father and Mother took a bench 
out under the cherry tree. The children sat at 
their feet in the grass. It was then that they noticed 
the Policeman walking back and forth past the 
gate, pausing irresolutely each time as though he 
would like to come in. 

About the twentieth time this happened, Hazar 
called to him. “ Do you want anything, Policeman ? 9 

At that the Policeman took courage and pushed 
open the gate. 

“It's welcome you are to this village,” he said to 
Hazar, for he knew very well who he was, and he 
meant his welcome heartily. But then he turned to 
Detra and asked in a hesitating voice, “Has your 
girl left you? I saw her on the street with a bundle 
this morning, and though I have passed the house 
often since, I have caught no sight of her about.” ' 

“Nan? Yes, she has gone back to the moun¬ 
tains.” 

Came a pause, while the children could see that 
this was sorry news for the big Policeman. Then 
he said, shortly, “Well, with a man in the house and 
all, I suppose the work might very well be too hard 
for a slip of a girl like that!” 

“No indeed,” Detra answered, laughing.—She had 
not noticed his sorryness.—“It was just because the 
work was too easy that she left us. She thought she 
could no longer find enough to do.” 


THE WIND BOY 


232 

The Policeman shook his head. He could not 
understand that at all. He asked, “Then will you 
kindly let me have her address? I might be taking 
a trip to the mountains some day.” 

Her address! Detra and the children looked at 
one another in sudden bewilderment. How could 
they ever have neglected to ask Nan for that! Why, 
just “Nan, the Mountains,” would never be enough 
of course! No one could find her that way! 

Detra looked at the Policeman almost ashamedly. 
“I never thought to ask her for it,” she owned. 

The Policeman stared. “Never thought to ask! 
Don’t you know at all where she’s gone to?” 

“Just that she’s gone back to the mountains.” 

“Which mountains?” 

“Why, I see now that I don’t know that. But I 
always supposed the purple mountains,—the ones 
we see off there, beyond the meadows and the wood.” 

“Yes, that’s what I thought, too,” the Policeman 
answered. “But that isn’t enough to find her by. And 
there was something in particular I had to say to her! ” 

No one could overlook the trouble in his face now. 
Gentian suddenly stood up and took his hand. Yes, 
Gentian took the Policeman’s hand, the big hand 
that had gripped Kay by the shoulder so roughly. 
She said softly, but surely, her blue eyes looking 
confidently up into his, “She promised that Kay and 
I were to go to the mountains to visit her. Soon! 
That means she will let us know where she lives 
when that time comes. Perhaps, she will let you 
know, too.” 


COMRADES 


233 

The Policeman in some strange, deep way was 
comforted. It was as though Nan herself had prom¬ 
ised him through Gentian’s voice! 

And so he turned back to his tramping of the peace¬ 
ful village streets, with his trouble changed into 
thoughtfulness. 


When the Policeman had gone, the Artist came 
through the hole in the hedge. Then he and Hazar 
and Detra put their heads together in a very grown-up 
way to make plans for the future of Detra’s art, and 
Hazar’s tree nurseries. 

The children lost interest at that. And they were 
glad to hear Rosemarie calling them, although they 
had heard her many times before that afternoon 
without answering. She was playing with some of 
their schoolmates over the lilac hedge on the Artist’s 
lawn. The lawn was a sea, and the sundial was a 
pirate ship. Rosemarie was the captain. 

“Come along Kay and Gentian,” she called. 
“We’re on the track of hidden treasure.” 

So Kay left his father’s side and ran away to be a 
pirate. But Gentian got no farther than the door. 
There she suddenly had no heart for play, and sat 
down on the door stone. 

“Aren’t you coming?” Kay called back to her in 
surprise from over the hedge. 

“By and by I’ll come perhaps—not now.” 

So the pirates went dashing off after hidden treas¬ 
ure without her. Now she could think the thought 


THE WIND BOY 


234 

that had been knocking at the door of her mind 
through the day, under all the happiness of her 
father’s return. It was, “It isn’t fair that the Wind 
Boy should stay away so. I wouldn’t give him up 
for Kay and all those others. But he gave me up the 
minute he got his Clear Comrades back again.” 

After a time the Artist came out of the door to go 
home, all plans for Hazar’s nurseries settled. But 
he stopped for a minute by Gentian to say, “Why 
aren’t you off with Kay and Rosemarie, little Wind 
Girl ? Or are you waiting here for your Wind 
Boy?” 

“No, I’m not waiting for him, “Gentian answered, 
looking up rather mournfully at the Artist. “He 
doesn’t come to play any more.” 

The Artist’s face grew rueful. “Is that because I 
have taken him away for a while? But soon he will 
be back, you know, all done into bronze, life-sized, 
and out in the tulip garden. He will play with you 
then, won’t he?” 

“No. I didn’t mean the statue! I mean the real 
Wind Boy up in the Clear Village. The one Mother 
copied. It’s him I’ve lost.” 

“I’m sorry,” the Artist said to that. “But per¬ 
haps his wings will bring him back down to you yet. 
Who knows?” The Artist was so fond of his little 
“Wind Girl” already that it troubled him to see her 
sad. 

When he had gone, Gentian suddenly thought, 
“Well, anyway I have my starry-brightness. I can 


COMRADES 


235 

run up and see that.” And she did get up and go 
softly into the house. 

Through the open sitting-room door she saw her 
mother and father sitting on the bench under the 
window. They were looking at each other over the 
bowl of tulips, which was still there, saying nothing, 
but smiling. Gentian went past on tiptoe. “They 
are glad to be alone,” she thought. 

When she got up to her mother’s room and had 
opened her own bottom drawer, she knelt before it 
on the floor, looking deep, deep into the starry blue 
depths. 

And as she looked, her thoughts cleared. “They 
cleared until they were crystal clear. And this is 
what came into their clearness: 

“How foolish I am! Of course the Wind Boy will 
come back. He is my comrade. He wouldn’t forget 
me, just because he was happy. He would remem¬ 
ber all the more. He would remember all the more” 

She was herself again. Light-heartedly she closed 
the drawer and jumped up. “I’ll just go and play 
pirate after all,” she thought. “Perhaps, while 
we’re playing, the Wind Boy will come. Sometime, 
anyway!” 

But now that she was standing, she saw that she 
was through into the Clear Land! The light was 
not sunlight any more, but the crystal, clearer light 
of the higher village. And again she was alone in a 
room of the house belonging to the Twilight Girl. 
She looked toward the window. 

There were the cherry-tree boughs, all aflower with 


THE WIND BOY 


236 

pink and white cherry-blossoms. Not the boughs of 
the cherry tree that stood at the door of her mother’s 
little brown house,—but the boughs of the other 
cherry tree above it in the Clear air! The cherry 
blossoms down there were still in bud, but these up 
here were full blown. 

And there among the cherry blossoms, on a sway¬ 
ing bough, waited the Wind Boy. She knew he was 
waiting by the droop of his wings, and the expression 
of his face. But it was not the Wind Boy as she 
had seen him first. Now the light across his brow 
was clear. He was wearing silver sandals like her own. 

He did not see her standing at the window. He 
was looking down through the blossoming branches, 
as though he expected her to come up that way. 

"Oh, Wind Boy!” she called. "Here I am. I 
have come!” 

He started up looking about. Laughing, she jumped 
over the window-sill and went running to him 
through the blue air. 

The Wind Boy made room for her, balancing on 
the trembling bough. "It took you long enough,” he 
said, holding her hands. "It’s been two whole days!” 

"Oh, but I was looking for you all that time down in 
our village. You see I didn’t know how to get up here. 
My coming just has to happen. I can do nothing 
about it. But you could come down to me, any time!” 

"And I did go down, of course. Many, many 
times! But I couldn’t get you to see me.” 

"Not see you! I was looking for you every 
minute. Even to-day with Father there!” 


COMRADES 


237 

“Yes, you were looking for me. But were you 
believing in me?” 

“Believing in you? Of course. Why, I’ve always 
known you were real as real,—no matter how much 
any one calls you a dream!” 

“Oh, that kind of real, yes! That is nothing. You 
couldn’t help knowing that, could you! I mean, 
were you believing in the real myself, the comrading 
part of me.” 

Gentian dropped her head. “No, that is what I 
had stopped believing in,” she owned. “I had 
stopped believing that you were my comrade. I 
thought you wanted only your Clear Children Play¬ 
mates now.” 

The Wind Boy smiled. 

“Well, that tells us, then, why you had to come up 
here to find me. I could never have got to you there 
with such silly thoughts in your head. But you’ve 
come at last. And it’s all right. We are comrades.” 

He stepped towards her on the bough. His purple 
eyes were close above hers. Early morning purple! 
They kissed each other on the cheeks. That sealed 
their comradeship past any more befogging. 

“Where are the Clear Children?” Gentian asked 
then. “Why are you alone?” 

“I was only waiting for you. They are over in 
the wood by the spring somewhere, looking for 
flowers. We’ll go find them.—But you’ve never 
been to the spring, have you? There are little gray 
stones in the bottom. They are gray to your first 
glance, but after awhile-” 



THE WIND BOY 


238 

“Yes, I know. Then they are all-colours.” 

“Oh, you have been there!” the Wind Boy cried, 
disappointed that he was not to be the first to show 
her. 

“No. I do not think I was there. But I saw you 
there. You were with my mother. She was work¬ 
ing on the statuette all the time she was talking to 
you. She was trying to make yoU smile.” 

“Yes. She was telling me stories, stories you 
had told her, she said. But where were you? Why 
didn’t we know you were near?” 

“I was only looking through the spring, the one 
below. Neither you nor Mother could see me, nor 
hear me when I called. And I could not hear your 
words either, though I saw your lips moving.” 

The Wind Boy shuddered. “That must have 
been horrid. Strange and horrid!” 

“Yes, it was.” 

“Well, it’s nothing like that this time. You’re 
here now, safe and sound in the Clear Land. Aziel 
will be waiting by the spring to see if you came. She 
thought you would surely find the way.” 

“Aziel? Oh, I’m glad! Come, let’s go.” 

Gentian and the Wind Boy ran away fleetly, then, 
out paths of blue air toward the Clear spring in the 
Clear woods. And the Wind Boy spread his wings 
so wide as they went that I lost sight of Gentian 
behind their purple. 


THE END 



5 








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